


Alignment

by Slybrarian



Series: Strange Aeon [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dark, Fusion, Lovecraftian, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 20:56:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slybrarian/pseuds/Slybrarian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elizabeth Weir had big plans for her proposed Atlantis expedition, but Cam Mitchell had no intention of joining it. He was perfectly happy with the sort of dangerous missions he already undertook and didn't particularly feel the need to go on a possibly one-way trip to a distant alien city. That was what he thought, at least, until he joined General O'Neill on a visit to the Antartic outpost, met an old friend, got shot at with an alien weapon, and found himself volunteering for the mission for reasons that he couldn't quite express. He was pretty sure John was to blame somehow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alignment

A visit to Antarctica wasn't exactly how Cam had planned to spend his first few days back on active duty. He didn't think that he'd ever be comfortable there after the battle two months earlier. Despite that, he had accepted when General O'Neill had offered to let him tag along on the general's visit to the Ancient defense outpost. Cam figured that going to see what so many of his people had died to protect was the least he could do for them.

McMurdo Station was located about fifty miles from the outpost and relatively close to other top-secret research stations that the SGC and other organizations had established over the last fifty-odd years to study the ruins dotting the continent. McMurdo itself served as a gateway to all those other places, even if most of the scientists there had no idea what was going on around them. It was bustling with activity when Cam and O'Neill arrived. Not only was McMurdo preparing for the long, dark winter ahead, but there was a lot of traffic heading the same way they were as the facility surrounding the defense outpost was expanded and manned.

They made it through the obligatory tour safely and were escorted out to the helicopter they would be taking to reach the outpost. It was there that Cam got his first surprise of the day.

"General O'Neill?" a familiar voice drawled. "Major John Sheppard. I'll be your pilot for today."

"Sheppard?" Cam said, turning around to look.

John's eyebrows rose up from behind his aviator shades. "Mitchell?"

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Flying choppers. What are you doing here?"

"Sight-seeing," Cam said. "It's part of some sort of publicity thing."

"Right," John said. He glanced between Cam and O'Neill, no doubt wondering what kind of publicity thing involved a fighter pilot, a general, and an icy wasteland. "Well, sir, if you'd follow me, we've got about a thirty minute flight ahead of us, depending on local weather conditions. Things have been a little funky the last couple of months but it looks like we'll have clear skies all the way."

"Thirty minutes?" Cam asked. "That long?"

"I could make it fifteen, if you didn't eat a big lunch," John said with a grin.

"How about not?" O'Neill grumbled, eying them with the look of a man understood the joys of flying but no long felt the need to put up with the aerial antics of men fifteen years younger than him.

"Of course, sir."

There was a brief pause in the conversation as they climbed into the chopper. O'Neill took the copilot's seat, relegating Cam to the one behind him. Once they were airborne and outbound, O'Neill said, "I take it you two know each other?"

"We're friends," John said simply. It was, Cam supposed, one way of putting things, and probably the most accurate these days. Explaining their entire history would take the full ride, require a diagram or two, and violate federal law. O'Neill wouldn't give a shit about that last, but given that they hadn't even fully aired things about between each other, it wasn't exactly something Cam felt like sharing with anyone even if the general felt like putting up with it.

"We've been stationed together a few times, most recently in Afghanistan," Cam added. "Sheppard's the best damn pilot I've ever met – myself excluded, of course."

"You wish," John said.

Cam ignored the interjection and went on, "It's a shame he's wasting his talent flying choppers instead of real planes. "

"I'm sure the Fighter Mafia weeps for its loss," O'Neill said dryly. "What'd you fly before this, Sheppard?"

"Oh, you know, this and that. Pave Hawk, Pave Low, Black Hawk, Cobra, Osprey, some others. That last one was fun, once it stopped trying to kill me," John said easily, as if he wasn't rattling off an absurd list of choppers, most of which weren't normally operated by the Air Force. The Osprey wasn't even in general deployment yet and would have still been experimental the last time John had a chance to fly one.

"Huh," O'Neill said in a curious, thoughtful noise. "That's a lot of training for shuttling people around Antarctica."

John shrugged. "I needed a change of scenery and they needed someone with high enough clearance to fly people to all these bases that don't exist. It was the only continent I hadn't set foot on, so I volunteered."

Cam bit his tongue. He hadn't known where John had been assigned to, but he knew damned well what had happened in Afghanistan. John had been reluctant to share more than the most basic facts, but Cam had enough friends still there to get all the salient details. He wanted to get the full story, but he would have to wait and try to catch John back at McMurdo. There was no way he would open up even a little with O'Neill around.

"Huh," O'Neill said again. He sounded even more curious than before. He had the good sense to let things lie, though. "You weren't missing much. It's definitely my least favorite continent."

"I hear that," Cam said.

"Really?" John glanced back his way for a moment. "I kinda like it here."

"You _like_ it here?" O'Neill repeated incredulously. "Mitchell, why didn't you tell me our pilot is insane?"

"Sir, I don't think either of us has any room to talk," Cam pointed out.

"Maybe you don't, but I have an entire row of certificates saying I'm perfectly sane."

Normal SGC protocol at this point would have been to make some joke about there being different and much broader standards of crazy for SG teams, but Cam was only tangentially connected to that part of the program and they were in mixed company in any case. Instead he asked, "John, when's the next time you have leave?"

"Probably October, November, something like that," John answered. "I'm going to be wintering here. Apparently top-secret bases don't shut down just because of months-long nights and blizzards from hell."

Cam grinned. "November? Good, just in time for Thanksgiving."

"I'm not going to Thanksgiving," John said firmly. Cam could tell he was smiling even without being able to see his face.

"You are."

"Your family scares me, Mitchell. In small groups they're not so bad, but one Christmas with the entire horde was enough for a lifetime as far as I'm concerned."

"Come on, they're not that bad."

"They are and you know it."

"Okay, maybe they're a little scary at first," Cam conceded. "You get used to them. Don't think I'm not letting Momma know you'll be available."

"_If_ I get leave then," John said, "I might drop by for a few days. But I'm not staying for the holiday."

"You just keep telling yourself that, Sheppard," Cam said. "Sooner or later you'll figure out that there's no escape."

John's reply was to suddenly yank the stick back and cut the throttle, sending the chopper plummeting a dozen yards before jerking to a stop as Sheppard hit the gas again.

"What the fuck?" O'Neill shouted. Cam just clutched at his seat and wondered what had set John off. Cam had seen him pull this sort of stunt before and every time something bad had been about to happen.

A second later, something bright flash past the cockpit window, right about where they would have been if John hadn't pulled back when he had.

"Oh, shit," Cam said. "Was that what I think it was?"

"I think it was," O'Neill said, craning his neck to look.

John gunned the engine and sent the chopper straight up. Something passed right under Cam's feet with a loud, cicada-like buzz. He wondered why they were still alive. If death gliders couldn't escape drones, an old helicopter sure as hell shouldn't have been able to even with the best pilot at the stick.

The radio crackled to life. "Puffin One, this is Sierra-Whiskey Five. Be advised that there is a live, uncontrolled drone in the air. It may be capable of seeking a target on its own. Recommend you ground immediately."

"Thanks for the tip," John muttered. All around them was were rough, rocky foothills, with nowhere that looked level enough for a safe landing.

"Turn left," O'Neill ordered. "Head around that point there. No, left, I said –" He stopped as the drone flashed past just inches away from the left windows. "Or right works."

"No one likes a backseat driver, sir," Cam said, resisting the urge to give some advice himself, or maybe even jump forward and take wrestle the stick away from John. He despised having to sit back while someone else flew, especially when something was trying to kill him.

"I'm just saying, I think the nearest piece of flat land is that way."

"I've flown this route before, sir," John grunted, after dodging the drone yet again, "and if you don't mind waiting just one second, we'll be down."

True to John's word, they ducked down into a small valley barely big enough to fit the chopper and a minute later they reached a wide snowy plain. John dodged the instant they emerged from the rocks and the drone swept straight down in the ground. He flew them a few hundred yards before grounding the chopper and killing the engine entirely.

"What was that?" John demanded.

"Hold on a second," O'Neill said. A moment later the drone popped out of the ground maybe a quarter mile away and arced through the air toward them. "Everyone out!"

Cam slammed his door open and dove out, tripping and landing face-first in the snow. As he tried to get up he could see the drone streak right at him and had long enough to think that he was going to be really embarrassed if he survived the battle of Antarctica just to be killed by a freak weapon misfire.

When the drone was maybe a hundred feet away, it suddenly died and hit the ground, bouncing several times before coming to a stop just in front of a very surprised-looking O'Neill. It was the first time Cam had seen one up close. The main body roughly football sized and it had several tentacles of about the same length extended from the rear. It seemed to be made of some kind of smooth material that shimmered with oily fractal patterns that shifted as he watched.

"You know, I think I'm going to kill whoever fired that thing," Cam said after a second.

"Not if I get to him first," O'Neill growled, slowly backing away from the drone.

John popped his head around the chopper a moment later. "We're not dead?"

"We're not dead," Cam confirmed. His heart was definitely pounding way too hard for that to be the case.

"That's good." John peered at the drone with interest. "What is that?"

"Would you believe it's a weather balloon?" Cam asked. John looked at him and even with the shades Cam could see he wasn't buying it. "It's an alien missile."

"Oh." John tried to scratch his head through his helmet. "Well, that doesn't happen every day."

"For us?" O'Neill said. "Not so much."

When it became apparent that they were no longer about to be vaporized – or whatever it was that drones did to simply make entire gliders disappear, which was probably far, far less pleasant – and that there were no other missiles roaming the sky, they started the chopper up and set off again. John finished the last fifteen minutes of the flight in less than seven.

There was a large hole in the dome over the outpost when they arrived. They were greeted by a lieutenant colonel who looked about ready to piss his pants, but O'Neill just stormed past with a vague wave of his hand.

"Uh, sir," John said, trailing along in O'Neill's wake with Cam, "I'm not cleared to go any further than the head."

"It's a little late to worry about that now, ya think?" O'Neill said over his shoulder. "You'll get read into the program later, but for now just stick close to Mitchell."

They rode the elevator down through the long circular shaft in the ice, which took several minutes. There was a ring platform at the bottom that would have made the trip a lot easier, but it had been deactivated for security reasons. When they reached the bottom, Doctor Jackson was waiting for them.

"Jack! It's about time you got here," Jackson said. His arms were crossed and he was shifting impatiently from foot to foot.

"Hey, Daniel. No, I'm feeling just fine despite the near-death experience, thanks for asking," O'Neill said. He stepped out of the elevator and, just as Cam expected, reached out to momentarily touch Jackson. It was just a little clap to the shoulder, nothing remarkable really, except for how every time Cam had ever seen a member of SG-1 greet another there had been some kind of physical contact involved.

"Well, obviously, you're standing right here," Jackson said. "Come on, I need to show you what we found."

"You found something?"

Jackson frowned. "You did read my emails, right?"

"What's email?"

"Oh, for – come on!" Jackson stalked off toward one of the tunnels leading away from the main chamber.

O'Neill looked back at Cam and John. "You two just stay here for a few minutes. Don't touch anything!"

"Yes, sir," Cam said.

Beside him, John was looking around wide-eyed and said, "So, aliens built this place?"

"Most people call them the Ancients," Cam said. "They first came to Earth about sixty-five million years ago and there's still a few ruins around the planet, although none with operational technology like there is here. They're the most advanced alien species that we know of, at least in this universe. They made the stargate and a lot of other cool stuff."

"Stargate?"

"It's an interstellar transportation device that sends you through wormholes to gates on other planets around the galaxy. The Air Force has been using it about eight years now."

"Wow." John gave Cam a sharp, thoughtful look. "Experimental plane crash?"

Cam grimaced. "I was shot down dogfighting alien fighters."

"Cool," John said with a broad grin.

"I lost half the squadron I was leading," Cam said quietly. That shut down John's smile like he'd flipped a switch. Cam cursed silently, already regretting that he had brought it up and crushed John's eager spirits.

"Sorry," John said. He knew even better than Cam what was it was like to loose someone under his protection. Combat rescue had been a job that John was great at, but each little loss had chipped away at him until one day he had snapped.

Cam waved it off and smiled half-heartedly. "They knew what they were getting into and they saved the planet. It could have been a lot worse, too. If Anubis had won...." He shook his head, trying to figure how to explain it to someone with no background at all. Words couldn't explain what Anubis had done before his first downfall and exile, atrocities so terrible in scope and kind that even the other Goa'uld were horrified. The thing he had called up and turned loose on Abydos was just the start.

"Let's just say that dying would have been preferable to what the alternative was," he eventually said.

"That bad?"

"The Goa'uld are parasites that possess human hosts," Cam explained. "They enslave millions of people across the galaxy. They've committed genocide a thousand times. But they're basically not that different from humans, when you get right down to it. There are worse things out there that would eat the minds of every person on this planet as an afternoon snack if someone opened the way. Anubis was trying to become something like that."

"Ah." John looked like he didn't really believe what Cam was saying. Cam didn't blame him. It'd taken Cam a while just to get past the existence-of-aliens thing and he hadn't just been shot at the time.

Cam looked around the chamber. There wasn't really much to see, other than a few people bustling around some equipment and a few weird-looking walls. He wondered when O'Neill would come back. Going by some of the stories Sam had told him about Jackson's infamous archeology rants, it seemed all too possible that it could be hours.

"So," he said after a minute, "did you hear about what happened with –"

"Hang on," John said, holding up his hand. He cocked his head a little. "You hear that?"

Cam listened carefully and after a moment he caught it, someone in the next chamber over speaking with a thick Scottish accent.

"– second I shut my eyes, I could see. I felt power I've never had before. I had it dancing all across the sky. It was magical, it really was." The speaker laughed. "They're lucky. I don't know where it came from. I just tried to concentrate and the drone shut itself down." He laughed again.

John and Cam looked at each other, neither of them terribly amused, and together they stalked over in that direction. It probably counted as 'going anywhere' but Cam was sure that O'Neill would approve completely. They found three scientists standing around a chair that looked like it was made of something like petrified wood and glass.

"So which one of you assholes fired that thing at us?" John asked. He got his answer when two of the scientists suddenly scurried off in another direction.

"Ah, um, I guess that would be me," the remaining one said. He held up his hands in what he probably thought was a placating way. "I swear, I was just sitting in the chair while they ran tests. I didn't mean to fire anything."

"You didn't mean it," Cam said slowly. "Well, that's a comforting thought. We were almost blown into tiny pieces, but you didn't mean to."

"Look, we're doing research and working with technology light-years beyond our own. We barely understand how any of it works, and sometimes mistakes are made. I'm very, very sorry."

Cam looked at John, who continued to glare at the scientist for a moment before relenting. "Well, just be more careful next time, okay?"

"Oh, aye. If Rodney thinks I'm getting back in that thing, he's crazy." The scientist held out his hand. "Doctor Carson Beckett."

"Major John Sheppard."

"Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell."

Beckett's eyes widened with surprise. "The hero of Antarctica?"

"The hero of Antarctica?" John repeated with an amused smile. "What's that mean?"

"Nothing," Cam said quickly.

"You don't know?" Beckett asked. "The colonel here saved the day during the battle. If it weren't for him, SG-1 would never have completed their mission and we'd all be dead."

"It was nothing," Cam insisted. "You could say the same about any of the other Snakeskinners, or the people on the _Prometheus_."

"You rammed a death glider after your plane had been shot. I'm no pilot, but to me that's pretty impressive."

"You rammed something?" John said, looking even more amused. "Mitchell, I don't know what they teach you in fighter school, but there's a reason your planes have guns."

"Look, I'll tell you all about it later," Cam said. Before Beckett could bring up the Medal of Honor that he couldn't wear in public, he asked, "So how's this chair thing work? Can anyone just sit down and start shooting?"

"It mainly works with some kind of mental control system that we don't understand," Beckett explained. "As for your second question, no. It's actually keyed to certain Ancient gene sequences. No one without that sequence can activate the technology around here. Not only that, but that gene functions as an activator for a number of other genes that seem to affect how well people can use the neural interface. There appear to be mental factors, too. It's all very complicated and we've barely started to understand it. We didn't even know about the gene until a few weeks ago."

"Wait a second," John said, his brow furrowing. "If it's locked to Ancient genes, how can you or anyone else use it?"

"Ah, that's a good question, it's it? We think that at some point in the past Ancients and humans interbred."

"But... they're aliens."

Cam knew exactly what sort of images were going through John's mind. "Not exactly," he said. "They were basically human."

"Genetically, we're almost identical," Beckett explained. "Close enough to have children, at least with a little gene tweaking."

"But I thought they're tens of millions of years old," John said, even more confused. "Modern humanity's barely a been around a few hundred thousand years. Not only that, but if they're from another planet, they shouldn't be a thing like us. Hell, they probably wouldn't even use DNA!"

"Jackson had a theory that we're the second evolution of the human form or something," Cam offered.

"Evolution doesn't work that way!" John protested.

Beckett nodded sympathetically. "Aye. It seems like most planets in this galaxy were seeded with the same basic life a billion or more years ago, and then terraformed again by the Ancients. That explains the compatible biology. As for why we're so similar, well, we haven't a clue. Some people have suggested some kind of genetic manipulation over millions of years. It's something we hope to this place can explain."

John shook his head, his expression making it clear that he found the entire idea absurd. He walked up to the chair to study it closely."So only certain people have this gene?"

"Not even two dozen out of all the people we've screened so far," Beckett said. "We're talking a small fraction of a percent."

"Huh." John poked at the gel on the armrest with a thoughtful look. Cam knew what he was going to do next, and sure enough he started to sit down.

"Major, please don't," Beckett said.

John grinned. "Come one, what are the chances I've got this alien gene?"

The instant he was seated chair lit up and reclined with a deep hum. The platform beneath it started to glow as well, as did panels all around the walls. John looked like he was about to shit his pants.

"Absurdly small," Beckett said faintly. "Don't move. And don't think anything, for God's sake!" He ran off, shouting, "Doctor Weir!"

"God damn it, Sheppard," Cam groaned. "Why does this shit always happen with you?"

"With me?" John said incredulously. "This is your fault!"

"My fault? How is it my fault?"

"My life was normal until you showed up, with your aliens and drones and space battles." Something warbled and a hologram appeared overhead. Cam had seen enough simulations created from the after-action reports to recognize the Battle of Antarctica. "Oh, hey. That's kind of cool."

"Yeah, it is," Cam admitted after a moment.

A herd of people came rushing into the chamber as Beckett returned and the hologram disappeared. O'Neill and Doctor Weir were at the front, followed by Jackson and someone Cam thought was McKay. He seemed to fit Sam's description at any rate.

"Who is that?" Weir asked.

O'Neill groaned. "I told you not to touch anything."

"I just sat down," John protested.

"He did," Cam confirmed.

"That counts as touching!"

"Never mind that," McKay snapped. "Major, think about where were are in the solar system."

Instantly a new hologram appeared. First it showed Antarctica, then it zoomed out to show the Earth and the moon, then it zoomed out further until it displayed all eight major planets and the larger moons, all slowly orbiting around the sun right over John's head.

"This," John said with an increasingly broad grin, "is awesome."

The next few minutes were filled with a great deal of gaping and many excited exclamations as John manipulated the control chair with the same effortless skill he had with any plane. Cam wasn't sure whether he was more worried by the way McKay seemed to be having spontaneous orgasms every time John did something new, or by the speculative looks O'Neill and Weir had when they withdrew to continue their interrupted discussion.

Cam had the dubious pleasure of listening as McKay had John run test after test with the chair. John seemed perfectly happy to run with whatever McKay asked, and McKay in turn babbled gleefully about zero-point energy and phase-space manifolds and invocations of dark powers.

"Wait, what?" John asked after a mention of the latter. Overhead there was a diagram that looked like what you might get if you mated a pentagram with something horrible from an advanced multivariate calculus book.

"I said it looks like a classic Dee-Hamilton array there," McKay repeated. "Well, parts of it does, I don't know – yet! – what a lot of this extraneous geometry does, but it's involved with some of the defensive systems. It's probably to keep minor nameless horrors from following the ionized trails left by the drones back into the chair and eating the user's mind."

"Yeah, about that. I'm still a bit unclear on the entire nameless horror thing," John said. "What exactly are we talking about here?"

"Oh, you know, brain-hijacking demonic entities, tentacled monsters from beyond space-time, that sort of stuff."

"No, I don't know, which is why I'm asking."

McKay sighed dramatically. "Am I really going to have to waste my time explaining basic concepts to someone who probably wouldn't know the P=NP Problem if it bit him?"

"You are if you want to keep seeing the pretty lights," John replied, taking his hands from the gel pads and crossing his arms. Above him the hologram winked out.

"But – okay, fine. Just remember that every second I spend telling you things that any half-wit intern could explain is a second that I'm not unlocking the secrets of the universe, which are inevitably going to add up and probably mean I'm too late to save all our asses at some point in the future."

"Do the seconds that you spend complaining about it count against me?"

"Yes. Now, the first thing you need to know is that our universe is just one of a near-infinite number that make up the greater multiverse. The structure of it is fractal in nature, not that you probably have a clue what that is. Now, some of these universes are very similar to ours, to the point where they may have diverged from the same base timeline only a short while ago."

"Many-worlds theory?" John asked.

"Not exactly, but the principle is close. On the other hand, some of the universes – in fact, the vast majority of them – are much, much more different. We're talking about fundamental changes in things like universal constants, number of basic physical forces, rates of time or even number of time-like dimensions, stuff that makes them completely incompatible with human or human-like life. With me so far?"

"No, I'm just a stupid pilot, but go on." John glanced at Cam like he couldn't quite believe McKay was this dense.

"Now, the only thing that connects all these universe is the platonic realm of mathematics."

"Or a quantum mirror," Cam added helpfully.

"Well, yes, but this is one of the underlying principles behind how that functions."

"Or a malfunctioning stargate."

"Which works by punching holes in space-time, so of course it can potentially cross universes, although it doesn't normally do so because the Ancients spent millions of years creating safety systems to prevent that from happening, except in cases where someone feels like ignoring the warnings, and can I go on?" McKay glared at Cam. "_Thank_ you. Now, as I was going to say, performing the right kind of mathematical operations and calculations can cause information to leak between universes. You can use that for communication, even open up gateways with the right kind of setup and power supply."

"Which has a nasty tendency to mean human sacrifice."

"Yes, quite. It used to be that people tried, and almost always failed, to do this sort of stuff with just chalk diagrams, candles, and stupid incantations, but these days we've got electro-optical summoning grids, computers, and the final Turing theorem to work with. Things really took off in the thirties and forties, although we all know where that lead." John started to open his mouth but McKay bulldozed on. It was probably for the best, since Cam really wasn't in the mood to explain the Ahnenerbe-SS. "Anyways, most of the things in these other universes are stupid little entities that can be pretty useful if you know how to use them, although if you're not careful they can hack your brain and move right in, but some of them are... bigger. Some of them are a lot bigger, in fact, and a hell of a lot more dangerous."

"Think Lovecraft," Cam said.

"Oh, don't even get me started on that hack," McKay said.

"Hack?" John said. "His stories are classics."

"Maybe by the standards of, of, English professors, but the actual content is crap."

"Except for the parts he got right," Cam said. "You know, squamous creatures with many tentacles from beyond the stars, mind-eating horrors that lurk at the bottom of the Mandelbrot set, alien ruins buried in the ice of Antarctica."

"Okay, hold it right there," John interrupted. "Different universes, I get that. Math being a common link across them, I get that too. But you're telling me that some of Lovecraft's stuff is real?"

McKay said, "Some being the operative word, and the less said about his stupid ideas about 'things man was not meant to know', the better."

"The theory these days is that he was slightly psychic," Cam added. "You have no idea how much the NID hates the guy."

"So, what, there's really a Necromonicon?"

"Yes," McKay said, "but it's less useful than you'd think, on account of al-Hazred being the _Mad_ Arab and thinking that electricity is magic."

"Fungi from Yuggoth?"

"Wiped out by pissed-off Asgard several years ago."

"Cthulhu?"

"Errr..." McKay hesitated. "Maybe? It depends on whether or not CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN occurs as predicted and the great old ones return to eat our brains. Personally, I'm hoping for either 'no' or 'yes, but they're all conveniently vulnerable to nuclear weapons and/or Ancient drones'. And it's not like Predictive Branch ever gets things right anyways. They didn't even know that we'd find the stargate."

Cam frowned as something occurred to him. "Should he really be thinking about this sort of thing in the mind-controlled command chair for an advanced alien outpost and weapons system?"

McKay, John, and Cam all looked at each other for a few moments, then John said, "So, I'm going back to thinking about where I am in the solar system, if that's okay with you guys."

"Good idea," McKay said.

Someone came into the chair room behind Cam and said, "Colonel Mitchell?"

He turned and saw Ford, one of the marines who was attached to Weir's project. "Yeah, Lieutenant?"

"General O'Neill and Doctor Weir would like to speak with you, sir."

"I'll be right there. Sheppard, don't fire any weapons or summon any planet-eating monstrosities."

"Sir, yes, sir," John replied. "Huh. You know, I think I can see your parents' house from here."

Cam followed Ford across the outpost to a small, makeshift conference room where Weir and O'Neill were waiting for him. At a wave from O'Neill, Cam sat down across from them. He had met Weir during his stay at the Academy Hospital, when she had come to visit just before leaving the SGC for Antarctica. She had struck him as a sharp, intelligent woman even before he knew her record as one of the world's premier negotiators in the areas of arms control and arcane technology. The fact that there was anyone at the Ancient outpost at all was a testament to her skills when one considered the international uproar that had followed its use, and if rumors were true she had big plans for the future. Cam had a suspicion that in many ways she was more dangerous that O'Neill, who was an eight-year gate veteran and before that had served with Delta Green, the American interservice task force responsible for dealing with occult problems on Earth.

"Good afternoon, Colonel Mitchell," Weir said with a smile. "It's good to see you again."

"Likewise, ma'am."

"I hope you're feeling better than that last time we met."

Cam nodded. "I'm good as new, ma'am."

"That's wonderful to hear." Weir folded clasped hands together on the table. "Are you aware of my proposal to mount an expedition to the lost city of the Ancients?"

"It'd be hard to miss the rumors, ma'am."

"Until now, those plans have been somewhat theoretical in nature. We've finally found a stargate address for Atlantis, however, and the president has tentatively given his approval for going ahead with the expedition. I expect our new international partners will agree as well."

Cam didn't doubt that for a second. "I'm guessing there's some sort of catch."

The tips of Weir's mouth quirked upward. "There always is, Colonel. We expected the city to be difficult to reach, perhaps even be accessible only by ship, and we've planned for a certain degree of isolation. As it has turned out, though, Atlantis is located in the Pegasus dwarf galaxy, which is considerably more distant than even the Asgard home galaxy of Ida. There's a good possibility that we could be cut off for years, if not indefinitely. It will make things difficult, especially recruiting."

"I can imagine, ma'am," Cam said. The SGC and other parts of the Stargate program had a tendency to attract a special breed of person in their field operations. However, going off to some alien world inhabited by God-only-knows what on a potentially one-way mission required a very _special_ kind of special, or more accurately borderline insanity.

"What's your opinion on Sheppard?" O'Neill said out of the blue.

Cam blinked. "Excuse me, sir?"

"Your _opinion_, Mitchell. What do you think about him?" O'Neill clarified with a role of his eyes.

"I think he's one of the finest men I've ever known," Cam said.

"Is that your opinion as his friend or your opinion as a professional?"

"Both, sir," Cam said firmly. "He's one of the best officers I've served with."

"His record says otherwise."

"Only if you ignore the vast majority of it, sir," Cam pointed out. "He's got as many commendations as I do and was promoted to major below the zone, despite a few minor complaints about professionalism."

"I'm not sure I'd call them minor, but sure, he's good at his job, there's no doubt about that," O'Neill said. "There's still that incident that lead to his sudden transfer out of the theater. His actions resulted in the loss of two aircraft, one with its flight crew, and he didn't even save the men he was going after."

"If you've read the reports, sir, you know that the commanding officers of those Marines fully supported Sheppard's actions and that his own CO declined to press any charges," Cam replied angrily. "And with all due respect, sir, every SG team that's survived more than six months has done something like it, including your own on multiple occasions."

For a moment Cam thought he might have gone a step too far, but then O'Neill suddenly smiled. "I'll give you that, and I can't say I wouldn't have done something similar in his position. The question in my mind is whether he can be trusted to follow the chain of command if he's put back into a line position, instead of being stuck in Antarctica."

"Absolutely, sir. Give him a good commander and a mission worth doing, and you won't have a thing to worry about."

Weir glanced at O'Neill for a moment with a small smile, and when he shrugged and nodded she looked back at Cam. "Do you know if Major Sheppard has any close ties to anyone?"

"Not that I know of, ma'am," Cam replied warily. "He's estranged from his family, divorced his wife years ago, and other than me I'm not sure he has any close friends left alive. Can I ask why you want to know?"

"We need him, Colonel. Major Sheppard has the strongest expression of the Ancient gene that we've seen and he can use it with a natural skill unmatched by anyone else. There are only a handful of other gene carriers who are possible expedition candidates, and several of them were already reluctant to volunteer even before it turned into a possible one-way trip. Sheppard's presence on the expedition could be the difference between success and failure. We have no idea what we'll find on the other end, but the ability to effectively use Ancient technology will almost certainly be vital. I also can not stress enough how important this mission could be for planetary security. We may have killed Anubis, but the rest of the System Lords are still out there, and we're less than eight years away from the possible start of NIGHTMARE GREEN. We need every edge we can get."

"I understand that, ma'am," Cam said warily, "but is seems to me that you need to be giving this spiel to Sheppard, not me."

"I fully intend to approach him before you return to McMurdo," she said. "However, I need to be sure he'll say yes, if not immediately than at some point in the near future. I'd like you to feel him out first, see if you can convince him to at least hear me out."

"I can talk to him, but I don't know how much good it will do. Sheppard will make a decision without worrying about what other people think," Cam said. It wasn't completely truthful, because he was pretty sure that John would take his advice seriously, but the man had only just found out about the stargate that day. Cam wasn't going to help pressure him into any hasty decisions.

O'Neill saw right through it, of course, probably because he was knew from personal experience how people like Sheppard thought. "You're someone he trusts and respects, Mitchell. He'll listen to you. I don't care whether you have to beg him, bribe him, or blow him in a bathroom stall, just make sure he ends up on the expedition."

"I'll do the best I can, sir, but I won't make any promises."

"That's all we ask, Colonel," Weir said with a smile. "I don't suppose you've given any thought to volunteering yourself?"

"I..." Cam hesitated. Until now he really hadn't, but the idea did have a certain appeal. O'Neill and Hammond had made it clear that he could have just about any posting he wanted, from an SG team to a return to the Skinners to a position as XO on _Prometheus_ with an eye toward eventual command of the next ship off the production line. Any of those could offer him all the excitement he could possibly want, but there was something about the Atlantis expedition that set it apart that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Maybe it was the inherent allure of being one of the first to explore a new world, with all the glory that would come with it, maybe it was the chance to get away from all the things he had lost, or maybe it was something else entirely. Whatever the reason, the idea of going with them to Atlantis was seductive and his gut feeling was to grab at the chance.

"You know, I might just do that," he said after a few seconds.

"Really?" Weir looked startled for a moment, like she hadn't expected that answer at all. "Well, please think about it. There's definitely room for you."

"I will. Is there anything else?"

"Nope," O'Neill said. "You're dismissed."

With nothing better to do, Cam went back to the chair room, where McKay and his fellow scientists were still badgering John. He didn't seem to mind it at all and was happily going along with it. It took hours before John decided to put an end to things and go get some food. Even then they didn't get any peace and quiet until they were getting ready for bed in the tiny guest room they were sharing. It wasn't all that different than the good ol' days, really: cramped quarters, small beds, and the constant noise of people passing outside the thin door made it seem just like Afghanistan, only instead of an overworked air conditioner trying to keep the heat out they had a naquadah-powered heating system to keep the Antarctic chill at bay. It was the kind of accommodation that a marine would call luxurious and an airman would blanch at.

"I should probably tell you now," Cam said to John as they stripped down to their thermal long underwear, "that O'Neill and Weir want your body."

"Huh?"

"Well, your gene, but the rest of you comes with it. They told me to convince you to join the Atlantis expedition."

John nodded. "I'm not surprised. McKay was pretty much threatening to kill me if I didn't join. I don't think he quite understands that I wouldn't be much good to him dead."

"I wouldn't put it past him to turn you into a zombie or something."

John started to laugh, then stopped suddenly and eyed Cam suspiciously. "That's a joke, right?"

"It's a joke," Cam told him. "The SGC frowns on its people being turned into mindless husks without authorization."

"Good to know. Anyways, it sounded like there was a good chance that this expedition thing is a one-way trip."

"They hope it won't be, but it could happen," Cam confirmed. "I suppose it's possible they'll find a land where it's all butterflies, ponies, and ZPMs growing on trees, but given that no one's heard from a physical Ancient for a few thousand years, I'd wager it's possible that the ponies crave the flesh of men or something. Everyone could end up dead or worse two minutes after stepping out of the gate. Even if it is perfectly safe, there's still no guarantee that they'll ever get back."

"You know, you're not doing a very good job of selling me this," John said dryly.

"I'm just being straight up with you. I will say that I can't think of anything you could do that'd be more important than this. It could possibly decide the fate of humanity. I think you'd fit in with the SGC a lot better than you have anywhere else, too. It's one of the best groups of people I've ever had the pleasure of serving with, in every regard."

John nodded slowly. "What happens if I say no?"

Cam shrugged. "Then you don't go. Your days with the regular Air Force are over, though, and even if you resign at the end of your term chances are you're not going anywhere. No one gets out of the program completely. They'll want you around to use the chair if nothing else. If you want back into the field, you might manage to get an assignment on an SG team, or I could swing you something at the experimental spacecraft program. Whatever happens, O'Neill will do right by you. He's a hardass, but he looks after his people. You remember Sam Carter, right?"

"That major from Christmas, right? The one whose eyes that were all fucked up from a lab accident? She was doing what, deep space telemetry?"

"Deep space, yes. Telemetry, not really. Sam was on his team until he made general. She'd probably be willing to put in a good word if I asked."

"Hmm." John laid down on his bed, arms cross behind his head. He stared up silently at the ceiling for a few seconds before saying, "What would you do?"

"I'd do it," Cam said. "It's a chance at a fresh start and doing something meaningful. It sure as hell would beat playing taxi driver or lightswitch."

"Is that Lieutenant Colonel Mitchell speaking, or Cam?"

"Both. Mostly the latter." Cam waited a bit, then added, "Actually, I'm thinking of going myself."

"Really?" John said, looking over in surprise.

"You're not the only one who could benefit from a fresh start." Cam grinned at John. "Tell you what, if you go, I'll go too. We can die messily together."

John studied him closely, like he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing, then raised his eyebrows, looked back up at the ceiling, and said, "Huh. I'll think about it."

"That's all I ask." With nothing more to say, Cam turned off the lights and got into his own bed. He could practically hear John thinking over on the other side of the room.

It was several minutes later that John said, "So, you were flying space fighters?"

"Yep, the F-302 Mongoose," Cam replied. "I was in command of the whole squadron, actually. The Snakeskinners."

"Really? Pretty impressive at your age."

"I about shit my pants when I found out. We were just finishing a round of qualifications when I got told that everyone more senior had failed miserably, that I was now brevetted to Lieutenant Colonel, and congratulations, I'm in command and need to get a bunch of pilots barely out of flight school whipped into Earth's main line of defense against attack from space."

John chuckled. "That's what you get for being such a hot-shot pilot."

"Yeah, it's hard being the best. The 302s are amazing planes, really, but they're a bitch to fly. There's three separate propulsion systems: anti-grav, ion thrusters, and a rocket booster, plus sometimes they'd stick on a hyperdrive. Not only that, but there's an inertial dampening system, too. Most people just couldn't adapt, especially out of atmo. What we ended up with was me, a couple majors, and a bunch of young guys who hadn't built up as many bad habits."

Half of whom were now dead, blow to pieces right above where they were lying.

"So, is that why you left?" John asked, way too casually to actually be casual.

"Yeah," Cam said immediately. A beat later he shook his head and corrected himself. "No. Not really."

John snorted. "Real clear answer there, Mitchell."

"It's why I was transferred, yes," Cam said. "I got a letter from Sam saying she had recommended me for some important program and that I should accept when the recruiters came around. She couldn't say much, but I could tell it was a big opportunity." John made a disgruntled noise and Cam rushed on before he could interrupt. "If you want to know why I left you, though, I'm man enough to admit it's because I was too chickenshit to keep going like we were. It was getting serious, I wasn't sure I could handle all the secrecy any longer, and a transfer seemed like a good excuse to break things off."

It felt good to let it all out, even if it was probably silly to do so after nearly a year.

"Sounds like you've been thinking about this," John said quietly. He probably thought Cam was crazy, because this was not the sort of conversation either of them particularly enjoyed.

"Yeah, well, I had plenty to time to think about regrets after the crash. For what it's worth, I wish it hadn't ended like that." Or at all, but Cam wouldn't say that aloud.

"And serious? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Do you really want to have that conversation?"

"Good point." John snorted again. "You know, it's a sad day when someone's worse at relationships than I am."

Cam chuckled. "Tell me about it. My brother would be ashamed to know me."

"So, wanna fuck?"

"What?!" Cam sat up straight and stared incredulously at John. Even in the minimal light provided Cam could see a shit-eating grin on his face. "The walls are paper-thin! There's a general sleeping next door!"

That was assuming that O'Neill wasn't in Jackson's room, of course. Everyone in the program knew that they and the rest of SG-1 were screwing, and a couple of comments Sam had dropped suggested it wasn't just rumor. If he was next door, though, O'Neill would murder them if they kept him up. There was a small part of Cam that did think that it would be absolutely worth it, but whenever he listened to that part of him he ended up getting shot at or worse.

"Is that a yes or a no?"

"No!"

"Good, because I wasn't actually offering. I wouldn't want things to potentially get serious or something."

Cam flopped back down on the bed. "You are a jackass, Sheppard."

"Yeah, well, you're a jerk."

"That's Lieutenant Colonel Jerk to you, Major."

"Bite me, sir."

Cam grinned to himself in the darkness. It was clear that John was in good humor still, even if his 'good' humor sucked like it always did. That was something, at least. It felt nice to get that admission off his chest, too, instead of having it sitting there like a dull lump and threatening to spring loose any time he was drunk or high on painkillers and had access to email. He didn't expect anything to change because of it, but if nothing else it'd be good to have nothing hanging between them if they did end up stuck in another galaxy without much company.

Sleep came slowly, as it had most nights since the battle. Even now, after Cam had pulled every last piece of it apart and examined it carefully to figure what he might have done differently, there was still an irrational subconscious feeling that he had screwed up. It had a nasty habit of manifesting in his dreams in the form of his fallen pilots, their shades sullen and accusatory. If it wasn't that nightmare, it was the one of the crash itself, of skipping along the glacier and feeling his body shatter and snap with each impact. Cam had expected it might be a bad night, given where he was, and he had even considered taking one of the carefully horded and rarely used sleeping pills his therapist had prescribed him. Soon enough, though, he found himself drifting off to the familiar, comforting snuffles and snores coming from the next bed over, and when sleep took him it was calm and deep. When Cam woke in the morning, he found he was more rested than he had been in months. He had dreamed, but while he couldn't really remember about what he knew it hadn't been the usual nightmares. They had been filled with hope and satisfaction, and a deep conviction that soon all would be right again.

Apparently Cam was still an optimist at heart.

Breakfast was surprisingly good for being cooked at the ass end of the planet: waffles, hash browns, and what he could at least pretend were scrambled eggs. He and John were surprised when O'Neill put his tray down at their table, took the chair next to Cam, and interrupted their conversation by saying, "Well, what's your answer?"

"Sir?" John said, his fork halfway to his mouth with a lump of eggs on it.

"Are you going or not?"

"Going where?"

O'Neill rolled his eyes. He hadn't bothered to put in contacts that morning, leaving their golden naquadah-stained nature plain to see. "On the expedition. Did Mitchell talk you into it or not? Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about, I know he's too big of a boyscout not to tell you about our nefarious intentions the first chance he got."

John glanced at Cam then said, "With all due respect sir, at this time yesterday I didn't even know aliens existed. Then I almost got shot down by one of their missiles, found out I've apparently got their genes, and been asked on a one-way mission to another galaxy. It's a bit much to expect me to immediately make the biggest decision of my life."

"You know, this isn't about you, Sheppard. It's a lot bigger than that."

"Right now, the decision as to whether or not I go definitely seems to be about me." John put the eggs in his mouth and started chewing.

O'Neill, clearly sensing this was the wrong approach, said, "Let me ask you something. Why did you become a pilot?"

John swallowed and said, "Because I think people who don't want to fly are crazy."

"And I think people who don't want to go through the stargate are equally as whack."

"Uh, sir," Cam said, "I hate to point this out, but going through the stargate has a tendency to make people whack. Just saying."

O'Neill frowned as he thought about it a second, then shrugged and nodded. "Okay, bad example. But you know what? If you don't have a decision for me by the time I'm done eating, I don't even want you."

John looked at Cam again for several long seconds and finally said, "I guess I don't really have anything better to do. Sure, why not."

"_Thank_ you."

Before he could think of all the reasons this was a bad idea, Cam blurted, "I'm volunteering too, sir."

"Really?"

"Yes, sir."Cam grinned like the fool he was and found John smiling back at him.

"Huh. Well, your choice."

A week later they were in Colorado Springs, scrambling with the preparations for departure. It was clear Weir had been planning this ever since they determined that the lost city was more than just a wild goose chase on SG-1's part, because she already had page after page of outlines and lists. It wasn't nearly enough, though, not if they wanted to do this right and not all die because someone forgot to bring the right kind of sunscreen or some shit like that, as opposed to because something on the other end thought they looked tasty. The latter was understandable, the former just plain embarrassing.

The senior leadership of their expedition – or to really be more accurate, the entire expedition at present, because they and a few others were the only definite members so far – commandeered a conference room on Level 17 to start planning. Weir was at the head of the table, and along one side were the civilians. Doctor McKay was there, of course, as head of sciences. Next was Doctor Carolyn Lam, their chief medical officer. Last was Doctor Grodin, a British scientist who was an expert on computational demonology and Weir's chief administrative minion. At the other end was her military counterpart, Colonel Marshall Sumner. There had been a brief period when Weir had considered Cam for command, but he was a pilot by trade and didn't have any real gate experience, not to mention she had already settled on a mostly Marine force and it was only right to give a Marine command. Sumner had led SG-15 for a year and before that had been a member of Delta Green. Cam would be serving as his executive officer. John was next to Cam, and beyond him was Major Evan Lorne, formerly of SG-8. Cam had met him long before either of them had been in the program and considered him a friend, and apparently John knew him as well. His presence was reassuring, because his skill as a logistician was legendary and he was a fine soldier as well.

"The most basic fact of this expedition," Weir said to them, "is that we will be working with limited resources. There is a hard limit of thirty-eight minutes for sustaining a wormhole, so all of our choices in terms of number of personnel and supplies must be based on that time frame. We also have to assume that we will not be getting resupplied at any point in the near future. We've only got authorization for a single use of the ZPM, so nothing else will come through the gate unless we luck into a new one. Our only ship, _Prometheus_, is far too slow to reach Pegasus. We're negotiating with the Asgard for advanced hyperdrive technology and it seems likely we'll get it thanks to SG-1's recent mission to defend their homeworld, but again, we're looking at a year or more even with the best-case scenario. We need to plan for supporting ourselves indefinitely. For that reason, I've settled on bringing somewhere between a hundred and fifty to two hundred people."

There were nods around the table, as they had all seen the initial projections for how much food they could carry or grow per person versus consumption and where the curve's sweet spot should be. There would be refinements, of course, but their numbers were unlikely to slip out of that range.

"I've noticed you want less than half of that be marines," Sumner noted, flipping between pages in his copy of the Planning Binder of Doom. "I'd feel a lot better if we had at least a full company, if not more."

"I agree completely," Weir said. "I'd rather take an entire battalion and whatever vehicles we could fit through the gate. We can't do that, though, and this is a primarily scientific expedition. We're going to need a wide range of skills, from engineering to linguistics to botany, which means a lot of civilians."

"My marines could take care of a lot of those needs," Sumner pointed out. "I'm not just talking support jobs like cooking, but we've got plenty of mechanics, electronics technicians, and that sort of thing. It'll let us cover more jobs with the same personnel."

"We can probably talk a few of the Air Force technicians here at the SGC or at Area 51 into joining up, too," Cam said. "They've got plenty of experience with alien technology. We also wouldn't want to accidentally draft every literate Marine in the Corps."

Sumner gave Cam a flat look, although it wasn't actively annoyed. For whatever reason Sumner seemed to like Cam. It was unusual, given normal marine attitudes toward non-marine aviators, but Cam suspected that ramming your plane into another fighter was something a marine could approve of. Either that, or he was Cam's uncle's brother-in-law's buddy or something like that. It was always possible with his family.

"I'd prefer to stick with Marines, but I suppose a few airmen or soldiers might be acceptable," Sumner said.

"I think that sounds like a good idea," Weir said. "Still, let's start with the current number as a baseline and see what specialists you turn up."

"Yes, ma'am." Sumner didn't looked happy, but he didn't look put out either and in all honesty Cam wasn't sure Sumner could look happy anyways. Sumner had certainly been around the SGC long enough to recognize that civilian specialists could be pretty useful, especially in situations where you couldn't just shoot or blow up the problem.

"There is also the matter of international troops," Weir went on. "While I expect most of the participating nations to send only scientists, there's definitely going to be some kind of international military presence."

Now Sumner's expression did change, as if something small and toothy had just latched onto his leg. "If it's possible, please try to limit it to NATO or other allied personnel. I don't have a problem working with Canadians or the French, but trying to integrate troops who have never worked with us would be a huge pain and joint missions with the Russians never end well around here."

"I think that might be possible," Weir said, making a small note. "I'll get back to you on it, and any input you have will be helpful.

"Major Sheppard," Sumner said, turning a little. "You can take charge of getting whoever we end up with integrated with the rest of the unit."

John smiled laconically. "I'd be my pleasure, sir."

If Sumner somewhat liked Cam and thought that Lorne was extraordinarily useful for a zoomie, he definitely didn't like John and no doubt was trying to stick all the annoyances in one spot. John didn't seem to particularly care about Sumner one way or another yet, beyond his usual flippant attitude toward superior officers. Cam was sure that they'd at least be able to work together and maybe even respect each other some day, although he did have the nagging suspicion that they might also end up killing each other.

"Moving on to civilian specialists," Weir said, "do any of you have recommendations?"

"I do, actually," Grodin said. "While I realize that the SGC has primarily relied on civilians with doctorates, I think we need to relax that standard to allow for people with just a master's or bachelor's degree."

"It's not like most people's doctorates are worth the paper they're printed on anyways," McKay added. "Not only that, but half the time we have to completely retrain them because everything they've learned is wrong."

"I agree completely, Peter," Weir said with a nod. "I think it's far more important to have useful skill sets rather than official qualifications. I also think we need to focus on practical knowledge more than anything else – engineers instead of physicists, general agriculture degrees instead of specialized botanists, veterinarians over zoologists. I'm sure we can find people where those overlap, of course."

"A lot of marines come from farming backgrounds," Sumner said idly, "and there's plenty of military doctors and nurses."

"I actually do plan to look into finding people who've got experience with field hospitals, Colonel," Lam said with an amused smile. "They'll be part of my department, but I'll be overjoyed if they have the free time to run around with your grunts all day."

So it went for the rest of the day, until finally they broke up at six in the evening. They could have stayed for longer, but by then they had the outline of a plan for moving forward and despite the amount of work ahead of them Weir wanted them to keep somewhat normal hours so that they didn't burn out before the expedition even left Earth. Cam expected that to be thrown out the window and twelve- or sixteen-hour days to become the norm by the end of the week.

"You know, Sheppard, I'm pretty sure this is the last place I expected to see you," Lorne said as the three of them walked toward the elevator.

"Yeah, well, apparently I'm part alien," John said. "Then Mitchell here talked me into this entire intergalactic mission thing."

Lorne nodded. "Same here, pretty much. Weir and O'Neill have been after me for a while."

"What changed your mind?"

"I was saying no because my mom was going to start chemo for liver cancer," Lorne explained. "Only at her check-up last week, it turned out that it had completely disappeared, so here I am."

"Was she touched by an alien?" Cam asked.

"Probably." Lorne caught the narrow-eyed look on John's face and quickly added, "Don't get the idea that O'Neill was holding it over my head or something. He hasn't even said anything and I wanted to go anyways."

"Hmm." John didn't look entirely convinced, but he let it drop.

"You guys feel like getting something from O'Malley's?" Lorne asked.

"I could eat," Cam said.

They ended up in a booth in dim corner of the bar, with Cam seated across from the majors and a small noise-scrambling device discretely placed on the table. O'Malley's still had the best damn steaks that he had ever had a restaurant. It was a shame he'd have to leave it behind.

John seemed to be of the same opinion, because around a mouthful of baked potato he said, "I wonder if we could recruit the cook."

Cam snorted. "Not going to happen, Sheppard."

"Why not? You can't tell me that Weir wouldn't go for it once she realizes what delegating the cooking to marines will mean."

"Maybe she would, but that's not the problem."

"Even if the chef got clearance and didn't mind the one-way extragalactic trip," Lorne explained, "the instant he saw O'Neill, Carter, or Jackson he'd run screaming the other way."

"Huh?" John looked confused as he tried to figure out what Sam or Jackson could do to elicit that reaction.

"There was an 'unfortunate incident' here a couple years ago," Lorne said, the quotation marks audible from the way he pitched his voice. "You can still see the blood stains on the carpet if you know where to look."

Cam grinned when John's eyes widened and momentarily glanced at the floor.

"What, really? I mean, okay, I could see O'Neill doing all sorts of crazy shit, and I know Carter's probably a lot tougher than she looks, but Jackson? He's harmless."

Cam shook his head. "He just looks that way. It's what makes him so dangerous."

"He fell face-first into the snow the first time he got out of my chopper," John protested. "I saw him run into a wall at the outpost because he was too busy reading something."

"And I saw him eviscerate a Jaffa with one of those little excavating spades on an archaeological dig that went to hell," Lorne said, illustrating with a little stabbing motion with his knife. "Don't get me wrong, he's a great guy, but harmless? Fuck, no."

"Do I even want to know what happened here?"

"Probably not," Cam said. "They were under the influence of alien technology at the time, stuff that made them a little nutty and super-strong. It got messy."

"You'd be amazed what claims of alien influence will let you get away with," Lorne said cheerfully. "Or being on SG-1, for that matter."

Really, Cam knew that he should feel awful about joking around about this sort of thing. The thing was, as Sam had admitted to him one night when they were both a little drunk, that sometimes joking about it was sometimes the only way to get past just how nasty things could get one the other side of the gate, and on this side when stuff spilled over.

"You people are crazy," John said after a moment, before returning to his steak.

Lorne grinned and elbowed John. "We are. You're one of us now."

They stayed there for a couple hours, drinking and catching up after they finished with their meals. It was a casual, easy-going affair, just three guys swapping stories about what they had all been up to since they had last seen each other. John was still giving Cam shit about the ramming incident, of course, and Lorne joined in. The two of them had apparently known each other from time at the same base in Korea, just before Lorne ended up at the SGC and John went on to Afghanistan. It was clear that they both looked back on that period fondly. There was something off about them, though, that Cam couldn't quite put his finger on until they were getting ready to leave. John had been letting Lorne touch him, hell, even outright lean against him after they'd both gotten a few beers down. John didn't let anyone get away with that kind of thing.

"Where are you staying, Sheppard?" Lorne asked as they got up.

John grimaced and said, "On-base housing."

"You can crash at my place," Lorne said. He glanced at Cam with curious look in his eyes and said, "You're welcome too, Mitchell."

There was an odd electric feel in the air, some strange frisson between John and Lorne that Cam couldn't quite define. It went beyond John's normal magnetic personality and the innate charm that made even the most hard-ass COs put up with his antics.

Not quite sure what exactly he was turning down, Cam said, "Sam's putting me up, actually."

"Suit yourself," Lorne said after a moment. "Come on, Sheppard."

"See ya around, Mitchell," John said before heading out with Lorne. He hesitated at the door and glanced back at Cam for a moment, then waved and left.

"Huh," Cam said. "Didn't see that coming."

Any questions as to whether or not Lorne really was just offering a spare room up were laid to rest the next morning. John swaggered into their makeshift storeroom-cum-office with a familiar smirk on his face, one that Cam had seen often enough on the morning after. It wasn't that different from his normal smirk, really, but Cam recognized it when he saw it. Lorne, for his part, looked more or less the same except for a vaguely smug air about him. Cam supposed that it wasn't any of his business what they got up to. After all, he'd relinquished any claim to John long ago. He didn't feel a tiny bit jealous at all, not even as time went on and it became clear that they were screwing just about every night that they didn't go home drop-dead exhausted and even on some nights they did, while Cam was left in Sam's guest bed all by his lonesome. Nor did he feel anything of the sort when the three of them went out and did stuff on the weekends and Lorne kept touching John in public in a completely gratuitous and unnecessary manner.

Nope, not jealous at all.

Fortunately for everyone, things soon became so hectic that Cam wouldn't have had time to ask Sam for help hiding a body even if he had wanted to, which he didn't of course. They needed to recruit and organize somewhere between sixty and eighty Marines and other military personnel, and as executive officer a lot of that job fell on Cam. It was a pain in the ass, of course, because even once they had a list of skills they wanted they still had to find people. Stargate Command definitely didn't have that many to spare: between the seventeen currently active SG teams, there were only about eighty people, and when the personnel from the SGC itself and the off-world bases were added there were still only about five hundred people. Area 51 could add more, but in the end there just weren't that many people to approach internally and the majority of them wouldn't even consider joining up. That meant recruiting outside, which meant a lot of work searching for candidates with appropriate backgrounds, running them through security and psychological screening, and then trying to convince them to join a one-way mission to another galaxy. The SGC recruiting department helped, of course, and they tried to pull men from units that already specialized in weird shit, but it was a tough job

Slowly but surely, though, something that might have been mistaken for a company began to take shape. The name of the game here, as it was with just about everything else they were taking, was redundancy. If it was worth taking, it was worth taking two of. Cam was the backup for Sumner, both because of rank and because of his experience leading a large, important unit even if it had been the entirely wrong kind. Lorne was backup for John because of his slightly weaker gene. They had a couple of good senior enlisted in the form of First Sergeant Bates and Gunnery Sergeant Stackhouse. After that were a bunch of lieutenants and junior enlisted, who by definition were interchangeable.

They got fairly lucky with most of them, especially the lieutenants. Two were recruited internally. Aiden Ford had been with the SGC for almost a year, mostly doing protection detail at the Alpha Site with the odd foray to other relatively safe planets. He had been decorated for conspicuous gallantry following a spectacularly fucked up trade mission and been selected as a candidate for an SG team. He had actually been one of the first to volunteer for the mission, not changing his mind even when the different galaxy thing came up. Sharon Satterfield was a three-year veteran who had joined the SGC straight out of the Air Force Academy and served with distinction since then. Laura Cadman was a combat engineer with a taste for high explosives. She was an outside recruit and had a good reputation, although her sanity was automatically in question given that only someone with a few screws loose would sign up for a top-secret project like this. The final additions to the officer contingent were international troops, Captain Laysa Sahine, a French soldier of Algerian descent, and Lieutenant (j.g.) Jake Miller, a sailor from New Zealand who seemed perpetually confused as to why he was there.

The rest of the company was a mix of crazy marines, with the usual SGC emphasis on crazy, plus about twenty other personnel from various American and international services. Most of them were weird in some way or another, because of the emphasis on secondary skill sets. Every Marine was a rifleman, of course, but some of them also were SCAdians who knew how to make chain mail or mathematicians who had abandoned their doctoral program in favor of something less stressful, like getting shot at. What really set the unit apart was the male-female balance, which was close to sixty-forty. The expedition as a whole was aiming for as close to fifty-fifty as possible, because no one wanted to end up in another galaxy with men outnumbering women by a large margin, and having nothing but male marines would just be asking for trouble. Technically none of the women would be going anywhere near action, but everyone knew that was just a polite lie to tell the rest of the service and it wasn't as if women weren't seeing combat every day in Iraq or Afghanistan. The SGC had long since given up on any illusions that women couldn't hold their own, because common sense said that pissing off people like Sam Carter or Janet Frasier was a good way to wake up with your balls missing one day. The SGC also didn't care about anything else you got up to in your off hours or who you did it with as long it didn't interfere with your job, but it was a bit harder to recruit for that particular solution to the male-female balance outside the program.

The same thing was going on with the civilian side of the expedition. People began to trickle in from across the planet, until they ended up having to take over the entire level to fit them all in. Supposedly they were some of the best and brightest minds on the planet, although everyone knew that they were also people judged as expendable. A lot of them were young, too, many lacking any ties and still so full of youthful excitement that a chance at adventure outweighed any concerns they might have about the danger, assuming they had the common sense to even worry about that at all. Of course, Cam supposed that might make them smarter than him, who knew damn well all the myriad ways things could go wrong and was still going anyways.

There were supplies to take care of, too, enough to keep one hundred and seventy or so people running indefinitely. Weir put Lorne in charge of that mess about ten minutes after the subject came up, because even if he was a smug little shit he knew logistics like no one else. He rode with every requirement that was thrown at him and came up with solutions, to the point where Cam was pretty sure that if asked to move the entire SGC to another planet using nothing but cats Lorne would have a packing list and diagrams by the end of the day. It was a good thing he could do that, because it was entirely possible that they were going to live or die based on how much shit Lorne could get through the gate.

At the bottom of the hierarchy of needs was food and water. They were packing an assload of MREs, and even more little Asgard cube things that tasted like crap but were enough to keep you running for days, but sooner or later they'd run out. That was why they were packing seeds of all sorts and even some seedlings, something for just about any type of environment they might find on the other side. There were even alien plants in there in case the soil wasn't right for ones from Earth. Water was essential as well and they were taking multiple filtration systems, enough to produce three times as much water as they could need just in case one broke. They tried to negotiate with the Tok'ra for a waste processing system, something that they used in their bases to literally turn shit and piss into bland but edible food and drink, but the snakes were in their usual pissy mood and wouldn't part with one.

Next in importance was weaponry. They wanted some of just about everything, because it all had some advantage or problem. Standard ballistic weapons had proven surprisingly useful over the years, but you had to keep them fed with ammo and maintained. There were a few moments where they seriously considered taking Kalashnikovs, but in they end they stuck with M16s and M4A1s because most of the SGC's fancy anti-alien and anti-possession rounds were made with those in mind. The heavier weapons included several SAWs and a pair of fifty-cal machine guns. Attempts to steal one of the experimental railguns failed, mostly because Lorne ruled it out as too bulky and not worth the effort. Explosives they brought by the boxful, everything from grenades and C-4 to Claymore mines and anti-tank rockets. Then there were the energy weapons, mostly zats and lethal-rated intars, but also fancier shit like basilisk weapons that were little more than video cameras loaded with special software but could fry a man in a couple of seconds. The alien weapons had the advantage of being both rechargeable with nothing more than fold-out solar cell and being all but indestructible, having been made for Jaffa who were usually even harder on equipment than Marines. They also had all the equipment they needed to make more ammo, at least for quite a while, and a number of the personnel they were bringing along knew how to make more primitive weapons.

Beyond that, they were bringing more random stuff from tools to trade goods than Cam could list. Shelter came in the form of tents and experimental tunneling crystals reverse-engineered from the Tok'ra version. They had a miniature surgical center, enough scientific equipment for a small university, and a mountain of computers. There were books, too, all kinds of useful information reprinted on alien materials guaranteed to last a thousand years or your money back, plus even more stuff in digital form. Probably the coolest thing they were bringing were the four electric-powered four-wheelers, to be used for scouting and hauling around gear or material.

They were each allocated a single shoebox for purely personal items. Cam wasn't sure what he wanted to put in there at first. A couple photos seemed like a good bet, sure, but he didn't know what else to stick in there. Knitting supplies fell under the category of 'useful to the expedition' and thus were included already in the community stores. Heirlooms seemed out the question and what ones he currently had with him would be shipped back home. He had a couple sweaters, as off-duty clothing was a different allocation. In the end he went with a couple of personal journals and one of his Gran'ma's afghans, carefully rolled up and sealed inside, one little piece of home to go with him. He also had Aunt Emma mail him a hard drive with a complete copy of the family archive, the result of the ongoing digitization project she had taken charge of. Memory was one thing they had plenty of, and while he suspected he would never so much as look at most of it for fear of homesickness it would be comforting to know that it was there.

Cam barely noticed as the time slipped past, late April turning into May into early June. Even as the recruitment phase died down that just meant training everyone in SGC procedures and basic survival skills. That in turn meant no end to whining on the part of some people, who felt that it was all a waste of time. They lost a few people at that point, two civilians and a Marine to gate psychosis and five more new recruits who suddenly realized that maybe space travel really was as dangerous as they had been warned. It was only to be expected, even with all the screening they did, because the only way to know for sure whether someone was going to be in that fraction of people who didn't come out the other side of the wormhole the same as they went in was the send them on through.

After they got the most essential parts of the training down and the inventory list more or less settled, they started to drills for the transit itself. Lorne was in charge of that, too, because he was good at managing people, knew what needed to go where when, and wasn't required for anything else. Weir couldn't do it, because she might be needed to talk to aliens on the other side; the same went for Sumner and Cam, who might be needed to shoot aliens on the other side; John might need to touch something and Sumner still wouldn't let him do anything important anyways.

Their first attempt was an absolute disaster, of course, even though they weren't actually carrying anything but some empty packs and boxes. People ran into each other, tripped over anything and everything, ran into things with carts, and in general made completely fools of themselves. Cam was pretty sure that the SGC and Alpha Site staffs were going to have all sorts of fun watching the surveillance footage for years to come, especially the part involving the six-marine pile-up at the foot of the Alpha gate and the one where Doctor Hersh went flipping over the ramp railing. The less said about Cam's accidental FRED ride, the better.

They improved from there, although Cam wasn't sure they could have possibly gotten worse without blowing something up. By first week of June they were making daily runs to the Alpha Site or other off-world bases, taking it slow and deliberate at first and gradually picking up the pace. They started shaving a few seconds off here, a minute there, all of it adding up until they could get the entire expedition through in less then fifteen minutes even with a blind run through the Gamma Site. When they did it for real, they would get all the personnel and essential gear through in that time and then a rely team at the SGC would continue to pass through additional supplies until the gate died at the thirty-eight minute mark, assuming the power didn't run out before that. There was some question as to what would happen if something was in transit at the moment the gate went off. Inside a galaxy, there was a small but noticeable delay between entering and exiting a stargate, but there were safety systems to insure enough of a charge remained as the gate died to get the travelers to the other end even if power was cut. No one was sure if that would hold true over intergalactic distances, and suffice to say not even McKay wanted to find out first-hand.

Then, quite suddenly, it was departure day. Both halls outside the gateroom were filled with people and supplies and he was walking down one with Sam.

"It's still not too late to turn back, you know," Sam said quietly. "I could trip you and break your ankle, no one would ever know."

Cam grinned and laughed. "I've spent way too much time making this thing work to back out now, Sam. I'm going."

"I thought so. You always were a stubborn, crazy bastard."

"Like you have room to talk." They reached the steps leading up to the control room and stopped. "Listen, if I don't come back, take care of my parents, okay? I'll feel a lot better knowing it'll be you telling them and not someone else."

"Don't worry, I'll watch out for them while you're gone. You just worry about taking care of yourself."

"I will." Cam hugged her and she did the best she could to respond in kind despite his backpack and rifle."See ya around, Sam."

"See you."

Cam went on into the gate room while she went up the stairs. The rest of the lead group was already assembled. John and Sumner were talking about something; the instant Sumner turned away John rolled his eyes and got a gigantic smirk on his face.

"Can I ask you a question, Colonel?" Sumner asked, coming over to Cam.

"Of course, sir."

"Is there a reason one of his COs hasn't shot him yet?"

Cam smiled. "I think that would be his charming personality and his flying skills, sir."

"Hmph." Sumner's flat expression made it clear that, unlike most people, he wasn't affected by John's smile. "He better hope he finds something to fly, then."

"He grows on you, really. Sort of like a fungus."

Sumner eyed Cam for a moment, with something that almost might be amusement but also might be him thinking that someone else was a fungus too, before turning and going to join Weir at the base of the ramp. Cam took his own place at John's side.

"You know," Cam said quietly, "you might have to spend the rest of your life with that guy. You should probably try to get on his good side."

John smirked. "Where would the fun in that be?"

"Your very short life, I should add."

"No one's shot me yet."

"Except –"

"He tried to throw me out of a plane."

"Close enough."

"Shhh, Weir's gonna say something."

She was, giving them all just one last chance to back out before they were past the point of no return. No one took it, of course; by that late point you would have to be dense as rock to just then be responding to the warning. Cam was so antsy that he could barely pay attention to what else she was saying, and he had heard it all before anyways: eternal glory, untold knowledge, boldly going where no one has gone before, so on and so forth.

Finally, Weir returned to her place at Sumner's side. They and three Marines would go through first, with John and Cam next. It was an ass-backward way of going into potential trouble, but still the best way to do it. If anyone got stranded alone on the other side, it would be the expedition's leaders. The gate started to spin, chevrons thunking into place to the backdrop of Sam's voice confirming locks. They hit chevron seven and time seemed to hold still as they waited for the moment of truth.

Chevron eight locked and the gate engaged.

The MALP crawled forward into the shimmering blue puddle and another, even more tense wait began. They were prepared for any number of situations on the other side, but there were some things that could shut them down flat: vacuum, an iris or shield, molten lava, angry people with guns. To get this close and then have it all fail would be the epitome of letdowns.

The speakers crackled to life. "Expedition team, you have a go," O'Neill said. "Good luck."

"All personnel," Lorne added, "proceed with departure plan Charlie. I repeat, departure plan Charlie. Clock is running, thirty-six minutes."

"You heard him!" Weir shouted, grabbing her assigned pallet. "Plan Charlie, pass it on!"

Weir, Sumner, and their escorts strode up the ramp. A few seconds later Cam and John walked through side by side, and the world dissolved into light.

* * *

John felt cold, far more so than he ever had in Antarctica, and a rush like the one you got when you were coming in for an emergency landing, still a hundred feet or so up, and your engine gave out. It lasted for a moment or for an eternity, or maybe just somewhere in between. Then he was a clear on the other side. He was in a dark, cavernous space, lit only by the blue glow of Cherenkov radiation coming off the event horizon and the flashlights of those who had come through ahead of him. He instinctively glanced left; the first thing he saw clearly after arriving was the slight grin on Cam's face. It seemed like a good omen to John.

That one momentary glance was all the lallygagging he had time for. He gave the cart he was pulling a good shove off to the side and rushed forward to join Weir, who was standing several steps up a stairway immediately in front of the gate. Plan Charlie had him staying with Weir near the center of action, helping to direct traffic and standing ready in case his magic gene was needed. Cam and Sumner would fan out with the security teams to the left and right, sweeping outward to see how much space they had and figure out where to shove everyone for the moment.

"Anyone see a lightswitch?" Cam called behind John.

John thought that a little more light would be nice if they didn't want to end up with the mother of all traffic jams, and a moment later something went click. Only it wasn't so much a click as an Ur-click, somewhere deep in his head as something in his brain seemed to slide around and then neatly slot into place. Above on the ceiling and at regular intervals along the walls panels started to glow, slowly getting brighter and brighter. He half-staggered another step forward and suddenly the stairs under Weir lit up to show blocky Ancient script carved into them.

_"We hold these as truth,"_ he read, which was absurd, because his crash course in Ancient had barely gotten him to the point of recognizing some important words like DANGER and a few conjugations. _"A hearty welcome to those of other worlds visiting our home for the first time. Welcome again to those returning. You have been gone too long and your absence has weighed heavily on our souls. We are whole again now that you are among us and we celebrate your being here once more."_

There was more, but people were flooding through the gate behind John and if he didn't move he was going to get run over. He went up the stairs two at a time to join Weir at the top. As soon as he got there more lights turned on, revealing a mezzanine level overlooking the gateroom floor. To John's left was an open space with benches and a set of doors; to the right was what looked to be some kind of control center.

"Are you turning on the lights?" Weir asked as the two of them carefully ventured into the control area and it immediately went from dim to full brightness.

"Not on purpose," John replied. There were dust covers on some of the equipment, he noted. It struck him as slightly silly that the most advanced group of aliens ever discovered still used something so simple. Then again, maybe simplicity was the way to go if you wanted to last millions of years.

"Hmm. Sergeant Markham, this is Weir. Are the lights coming on in your area?" Weir waited a moment for a reply, then nodded. "Thank you. The same thing's happening as he moves around."

"It must be an automatic reaction to our presence." Things were humming to life all around them, some more noticeably than others. John wasn't even sure what he was hearing and what was just in his head.

"Do you feel that? There's a breeze now."

John nodded. "Life support, probably."

"Move, move, move!" McKay came barreling up the steps and shoved past John. "What did you touch?"

"Nothing! I'm just looking at stuff."

"Well, make sure you don't." McKay carefully pulled the cover off on one piece of equipment, revealing some kind of console or workstation underneath. When nothing untoward happened, he went around uncovering the rest. "Okay, these are obviously control stations for something. There were a couple like it in Antarctica."

"There's a label on front," John helpfully pointed out.

"Yes, thank you, Major. I don't know how I could possibly have missed the large, glowing letters. Let's see... this one has something to do with general operations, I think. And these two here at the back say power and, uh, utilities maybe."

"I think this here's the DHD," John said, indicating the station he was standing next to.

"Why?"

"The symbols match the ones on the gate." They were different from the ones John had spent so much time memorizing on the Milky Way gates, which was just about typical for his life. In fact, the entire gate looked different, with bright blue chevrons and glowing glyphs all around the gate.

"Well, don't touch it. We don't want you turning off the gate or something and causing us all to starve to death."

John rolled his eyes and glanced over at Weir, who looked back with an amused smile. Since McKay clearly didn't need their help, and there seemed to be no aliens to negotiate with or technology to activate, they went to the balcony overlooking the gate and fell into their assigned secondary roles: playing traffic cops. About half the expedition was though now and things were starting to get congested down on the floor as people tried to haul stuff out into the surrounding corridors. People were shouting in a dozen languages, carts and pallets were being rammed into each other, and in general the entire room was filled with barely-controlled chaos. Despite that they were still moving right on schedule, with a space through to a corridor getting cleared just in time for the ATVs and the wagons they were pulling to come buzzing through, followed by a small parade of MALPs, FREDs, and other robots. Lorne and the last of the expedition came through at the fourteen minute mark and after that it was a matter of bucket-brigading the boxes and carts the SGC continued to shove or toss through the gate. It only stopped when the wormhole suddenly disengaged at twenty-seven minutes and fifteen seconds, cutting a box in half.

"That's that, then," Weir said softly. "We're on our own."

"Yep," John said. "Lorne! Get your ass up here so we can get all this crap organized. I've got a partial map for you."

"Be there in a second."

"Okay, so here's what we've got so far," John said when Lorne reached him and Weir. They had been sketching out a rough, horribly inaccurate and not to scale map of what the scout teams were reporting. "It looks like we've more or less hit the edges of the building, at least on this level and several for above and below. Stairwells have been found here, here, and here. Of course, we don't have a clue how far up and down this place goes, let alone how big the rest of the city is."

Lorne nodded. "There's definitely plenty of space in the immediate area to start setting up a temporary base camp until we see what's in all these rooms."

"What makes you say there's a city?" Weir asked.

"Uh... you know, Atlantis, the lost city," John said, making up the answer on the spot since he honestly wasn't sure. His eyes landed on some sort of screen hanging from the ceiling, which helpfully came to life and displayed a six-armed shape with rotational symmetry. In a way it resembled a blocky snowflake. "Also, that thing there looks like it's pretty big."

"I hadn't seen that," Weir said dryly, still sounding curious as to how he made the leap from an unlabeled diagram to city.

Before either one of them could say more, Sumner's voice came over their radios. "Doctor Weir, there's something you need to see. Take the first set of stairs off the right-hand corridor, go down three levels, and turn left."

"I'll be there in a moment, Colonel." There had been a lot of people calling to say there were things she absolutely had to see, but Sumner wasn't one to say that kind of thing lightly. "Major Lorne, find Doctor Grodin and start setting up the Stage One equipment. Major Sheppard, with me, please."

They left the control room, with McKay tagging along because anything important enough for Weir to see was obviously important enough that he should see it too, and followed Sumner's instructions. They found him and Bates standing next to a wide floor-to-ceiling window.

"Take a look at this, ma'am," Sumner said.

It took a moment for John to realize what they were seeing. Spread out below them was a broad expanse of flat metal, with numerous clusters of towers rising up from it. Some of them had to be hundreds of stories tall, and the one they were in was even bigger. It had to be miles wide at the least, stretching far enough that John could only just see more towers in the distance. It took him a moment to realize that the reason he couldn't see farther was that they were underwater. It was pitch black in all directions, including upward, and the only reason they could spot much outside at all was a faint green glow coming from the buildings.

"Wow," McKay said, genuinely in awe. "That's impressive."

"It looks like you were right about this being a city, Major," Weir said.

Sumner glanced at McKay. "How far under do you think we are?"

"I don't know," McKay said, which was another new and exciting experience for John. "We must be pretty deep for no light to reach us, maybe down on the abyssal plain. Definitely five hundred meters or more."

"Or it could just be night," John pointed out.

"As if we'd be that lucky." McKay tapped his ear piece. "Grodin, we're underwater. Yes, I know, sunken city of Atlantis, imagine that. Find out how deep we are. No, I don't care if you're busy. It's called delegation. I tell you to do it, you tell someone else, and so on until it gets done. Poke at the consoles until you find out."

Almost as soon as he was done, Cam radioed them. "Doctor Weir, Colonel Sumner, Beckett and I have found something that you need to hear. It's a recorded message from the Ancients."

Suddenly everyone found the underwater thing much less interesting. They reached Cam's location a few minutes later. He and Doctor Beckett were standing in a mostly-empty circular room, which had a slightly raised area in the center and a waist-high hexagonal pedestal at the edge of that area.

"What have you got?" Weir asked.

"Watch this," Beckett said with a smile. He put a hand on the pedestal.

A woman appeared at the center of the room. She was tall, about John's height, with a dusky complexion, almond-shaped eyes, and straight black hair that reached her shoulders. She was wearing something that reminded John almost of a sari.

"Greetings," she said. "I welcome you to Atlantis. It is gratifying to know that some of our descendants have survived to return to this great city. The master system time shows that it has been just over three hundred and fifteen gigaseconds since our departure. This is at the high end of the predicted return period and steps may need to be taken to insure continued the city's continued viability."

Well, that didn't seem worrisome at all to John. Nope.

"I cannot predict what knowledge you retain of this city and its history. There are few of us left and conditions on Terra are primitive, and so much might be lost. For that reason I have assembled a selection of introductory documents for your use, and there is far more within the city's extensive historical and scientific databases."

"What is most important is why we have abandoned our eternal city. When we first came to this galaxy from Terra, we found it completely lifeless, except for a few radically alien creatures inhabiting methane lakes or the clouds of gas giants. At the time it seemed a boon to us. We were free to seed life and stargates on worlds across the galaxy, without having to worry about pre-existing biospheres, lurking dangers, or the inherent threats that come with coexisting beside less developed societies. For millions of years, we existed in relative peace, and we took upon ourselves the duty of shepherding other races into greatness. Few lasted even a fraction of the time we have, passing beyond physical form or dwindling away into nothingness. We even seeded the human servitor species created on Terra across the worlds of Pegasus, to better understand our own origins. In time we grew complacent in our power, which was our undoing."

"On a distant world, a great darkness was awakened. We do not know how this happened, and by the time we recognized the danger it had grown immensely powerful. It may well have been the reason this galaxy was barren when we arrived. We battled it with all our strength and billions died across the galaxy as entire worlds were consumed or smashed into dust. We fought for a hundred years, won many great victories and even defeated the most dangerous threat, but in the end winning the war proved impossible. As I record this, a great fleet sits in orbit laying siege to us. With no other options, we will soon retreat to Terra, there to recover our strength in the hopes of one day returning. I wish you, our inheritors, the best of luck in reclaiming our lost glory and freeing the worlds of Pegasus from the great scourge."

The Ancient disappeared and left a grim silence behind. They had planned for any number of possible discoveries on this side of the gate, ranging from a welcoming committee of happy, peace-loving Ancients to something with too many tentacles and a taste for human minds. This sounded like the situation might lean toward the latter.

"I don't know about anyone else," John said after a minute, "but that seemed a bit ominous to me."

"For once, I agree with you, Major," Sumner said.

"This might explain why the city is submerged," Weir said. "Rodney, go back to the control center and see if the city has any sensors. I want to know if we're alone."

"Passive sensors," Cam added. "Active scans might give our presence away."

"Ah, yes, I'll get right on that," McKay said, heading for the door.

"Colonel Sumner, have your teams continue expanding our cleared zone as far as you feel comfortable," Weir went on. "Obviously securing the entire city is out of the question for the moment, but we need a safe area to expand out from."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Meanwhile, Major, you and I are going to figure out else is stored in this device. I don't want to get caught by surprise or have an accident that could be avoided with information from it."

McKay chose that moment to rush back into the room, pale and out of breath. "We have a serious, serious problem," he announced. "Colonel, you need to pull back the scout teams, now."

"Why?" Sumner asked.

"Look, as they move through the city, more and more systems are being activated. That means more and more power is being used, which is causing the amount of energy available to plummet. Not only that, but Grodin and Zeluna figured out that there's a shield holding back the ocean."

"Oh, shit," John said.

Sumner understood it too, immediately clicking his radio and ordering, "All teams, pull back to the inner perimeter, on the double."

Cam blinked. "Okay, so I must have missed something here – ocean?"

"Come on," McKay said. "I'll show you all what's happening."

Ten minutes later they were gathered around the screen in the control room. Most of the city map was in greens and blues, but here and there areas were turning to yellow, orange, and red.

"The city is powered by three zero-point modules, which we think are located at the base of this tower," McKay explained. "Two of them are completely drained and the third down to the last dregs. It probably could have kept the shield up for years more, but when we arrived all sorts of systems started turning on: air processing, waste reclamation, transportation, internal comms, even artificial gravity for some reason. We're trying to turn it all back off, but that power spike has more or less killed the ZPM and sent it into terminal decline."

"Can we hook in our own generators?" Weir asked.

"We're trying, but even if we use all of them I don't think they'll be nearly enough to sustain the shield." McKay gestured toward the map. "It's already retracted to the minimal levels, and the city's safety systems seem to be deliberately dropping the shields in non-essential areas to save power."

"What happens when the shield fails?" Cam asked. "The city was deliberately submerged, it's made out of advanced materials, and it was supposedly a spaceship at some point. Is there any chance it's airtight?."

"We're near the bottom of a deep trench, almost thirteen kilometers down," McKay snapped. "I wouldn't be surprised if the main structure remains intact, but when the shield goes down we get to find out if all those fancy windows are designed to withstand a thousand atmospheres of pressure."

Quietly, Weir said, "How long do we have?"

"Four, maybe five hours. We need to evacuate, now."

"We can't just abandon the city!" John protested. There was a horrible sinking feeling in his gut, the same feeling he had gotten too many times before when he had lost Holland and Mitch and Dex and so many others. "We came all this way to find the place, we can't run thirty minutes after arriving and let it implode!"

"We don't have a choice!" McKay shot back. "If we leave immediately, I think we can keep the shield running for a lot longer, maybe even long enough to come back and fix it if we can find a new power source."

Weir closed her eyes for a few second and sighed. "Colonel Sumner, I need you to find us somewhere to evacuate to. Rodney, I want you working on ways to sustain the shield or find shelter here in the city if there's nowhere else to go. Everyone else... get the expedition into position to pull back through the stargate."

Sumner nodded, his face an unreadable mask. Into his radio, he said, "Ford, Bates, I need a tactical squad for off-world exploration in the gate room, asap." To John, he said, "You're with me, Sheppard. Find an address and get a MALP ready."

"Yes, sir."

John grabbed a passing Marine and ordered him to get one of the mini-MALPs back into the gateroom. Next he went over to the DHD console and acting as much by instinct as anything else hit keys until a display appeared in mid-air. It was in Ancient but he could read it well enough that it didn't matter. There was a list of entries, each one a name accompanied by a set of six glyphs followed by a short physical description of atmosphere, gravity, and other essential information. He selected the first one, Aathosia Ptolsaykek, and more details appeared. By the time Ford and Bates showed up, John had several possible addresses.

"Everyone got their GDO?" Sumner asked. "Good. Dial the gate!"

John punched in the address and the gate began lighting up. Unlike the Milky Way gates, there were no moving parts; the glyphs just glowed and then a light traveled around to the correct chevron. The gate engaged and their mini-MALP was sent through. It was smaller than a regular MALP, without the full mobile laboratory, but it had a camera, an atmosphere testing system, and was more expendable than the regular version.

"We're receiving telemetry," Grodin said from where he sat on a stool by the DHD with his laptop. "It's a bit dark on the other side, but night vision shows a clearing with trees nearby. Atmosphere is Earth normal, no signs of unusual radiation or thaumic activity." He stretched and hit a control on the DHD, causing a shield to appear over the gate for a few seconds. "There's no interference in the signal, we should be able to read your IDCs clearly."

"Thanks, doc," John said. He loped down the stairs to join Sumner and the others. "We're good to go, sir."

"Move out!"

They stepped through the gate. It was dim on the other side, but not too dim to see without goggles; the first hints of daylight – or, John supposed, the last hints of the setting sun – could be seen on the horizon. John shivered, inexplicably cold even though it wasn't that cool.

"Martinez, Parker, Smitty, you're on gate guard," Sumner barked. "Atlantis, we are clear on the other side. We'll check back in fifteen. Spread out and look alive, people."

The six of them spread out in a line across the clearing, moving forward toward the treeline in a careful manner. There was no sign of any activity, other than a few birds starting to chirp up in the trees. That in itself was reassuring in a way. Clearly the Ancients had kept up their habit of terraforming every planet they came across with a biosphere modeled on that of Earth and plopping the gate down in the middle of a temperate zone. There didn't seem to be any horrible, all-devouring or tentacle-covered enemy, either, which John felt was always a good thing.

Just as they entered the forest something rustled ahead and John signaled for the others to stop. He squatted down and raised his M4. It was probably just a squirrel or deer, but according to some people it was entirely possible it would be a man-eating deer. There was another rustle, and then something fast and small came running around a copse of trees and ran straight into him. It was a miracle he recognized the creature for what it was before he squeezed the trigger. A second later he went down hard in a tangle of limbs.

"Hold fire! Hold fire!" he shouted as he tried to extract himself from the kid who had just ran into him. He was young, maybe fourteen or fifteen, although it could be hard to tell in areas that didn't get the same kind of nutrition as the first world. Another kid, this one wearing a strange mask and wig with long white 'hair' came careening around the trees and narrowly avoided tripping over John and the first teen. He removed the mask after a few seconds, eyes wide and startled, probably because of all the men pointing guns at him.

John was pretty sure this was how some of the more legendary tales of first-contact fuckups began, so he helped the kid up, put on his best smile, and asked, "You okay?"

"I am fine," the kid said, nodding rapidly and glancing between John, his buddy, and the Marines.

"Great. I'm Major John Sheppard. What's your name?"

"I am Jinto. Jinto Tetragan, son of Halling. And this is Wex."

"Nice to meet you, Jinto. I don't suppose there's any adults around?"

"Our settlement is this way," Jinto said after a moment, waving back the way he had come. "I will take you to Teyla and my father."

The boys started walking that way, cautiously at first but more confident as no one made any hostile moves. Sumner signaled for them to follow along.

With nothing better to do, John asked Jinto, "So what were you guys doing out here this early?"

"Training for tracking or evading." Jinto smiled proudly. "I am the fastest runner of our people."

"Good for you."

A few minutes later they came into another clearing. This one was filled with tents and a few permanent buildings made from logs. Here and there fires were burning in pits and people were starting to move about. All around the perimeter were metal posts topped by thin, circular panels. Those panels had strange and complex geometric shapes carved into them and made John's eyes water when he looked too closely at them. Sumner had Bates and the other two marines remain outside the camp perimeter.

Jinto led them to a large tent near the edge of the camp and pulled open a flap. Inside a woman and two men were seated on cushions around a low table. It was oddly well-lit, thanks to a softly glowing orb hung from the ceiling.

"Teyla! There are visitors."

"Thank you, Jinto," the woman said. "I am Teyla Emmagan, daughter of Tagan, and I welcome you to Athos."

"Thank you, ma'am," Sumner said. "I'm Colonel Marshall Sumner, this is Major John Sheppard, and Lieutenant Aiden Ford. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"May I ask what brings you to our world?"

"We're explorers, looking for possible trade, among other things."

Teyla looked at him skeptically. "We do not make a habit of trading with strangers. I am sure you can understand why."

John gave Teyla his best smile. "In that case, we should get to know each other better. I'm John. I like Ferris Wheels, football, and anything that goes faster than two hundred miles an hour."

"That's not going to mean anything to her, sir," Ford whispered, not as quietly as he probably thought.

"I know," John said in a normal voice. "That sort of the point, Lieutenant. Now I'll have to explain it, then she'll feel inclined to talk some more, and pretty soon we'll be pals."

Teyla was smiling now, and even Sumner looked like he might grin just a little if his face wasn't set in stone. "I typically begin my day with a stout tea. Perhaps you would like to join me and discuss why you are here."

Standard mission protocol said to decline food and drink whenever possible, lest you end up dead or worse, but John nodded and carefully sat down. "I love tea. See, we have something in common already."

"So it appears, yes."

They spent a while making small talk and drinking tea. Teyla's two companions were Halling, who was Jinto's father, and Toran. Both of them were traders and had been making plans with Teyla to go off-world soon. Jinto would be going with them, as he was his father's apprentice. John did most of the talking for his team, as Sumner seemed content to sit in stoic silence and Ford had the good sense to stay quiet, although he shifted restlessly next to John.

"It has been interesting to learn of your football and Ferris Wheels," Teyla said as they finished their tea. "However, I can not help but notice that you still have not explained why you have come here."

"Well, like I mentioned, we're explorers," John said. "This gate address was just the first one on a list we found."

"And you want nothing from us?"

John glanced at Sumner, who nodded slightly. "We do need some help, actually. We're members of a small expedition sent from our homeland to uncover the ruins where the gate is located and explore other worlds through it. Unfortunately, shortly after we arrived we discovered that the entire area was about to experience a massive flood. We have to evacuate."

Teyla frowned. "I have heard of such things. Can you not return to your homes?"

"We're already cut off. Our only choice is to find another world to relocate to and hope the waters recede at some point."

"I see." Teyla looked to her companions and sighed. "I sympathize for your plight, but there is little we can do. As you have seen, we live comfortably but we are not a numerous people. We can not take in many refugees."

"We're not asking for charity," Sumner said flatly. "We've got supplies to support ourselves. We just need somewhere to settle."

"Or a place to hold out for a couple days until we find another planet, if you don't want us staying here," John hastily added. "We can arrange some kind of exchange if you want."

"It might be possible," Teyla said after a few moments' consideration. "I must discuss it with my counselors first. If you could give us some time?"

"Of course," Sumner said. "Major, Lieutenant."

The three of them climbed to their feet and exited the tent, heading to rejoin Bates. The sergeant was studying something in the distance with his binoculars.

"You should take a look at this, sir," Bates said when they reached him. He handed over the binoculars to Sumner. "We saw it when the sun came over the horizon."

Sumner looked at whatever it was for a minute, then said, "Huh," and passed the glasses on so John could see it. There were the ruins of a city nestled in a valley, maybe three miles or so away. It didn't look much like the architecture of Atlantis, but that didn't necessarily mean anything, and it was certainly the remains of an advanced civilization.

"Looks like we may have hit the jackpot," Sumner said. "Even if that's not Ancient, there might be some kind of power source there that we could use."

"I agree, sir," John said. "It looks like a defensible position, too. We should probably ask permission before exploring it, though."

"And if they don't give it to us?" Sumner asked.

"Then we get a scanner or something, see if there's a power source, and retrieve it covertly," John suggested. "I get the impression they might let us stay for a while, and if that's the case we should avoid angering them until we find other options."

"Agreed. They don't look like much, but I'm not going to make any assumptions based on that." Sumner turned to Ford. "Lieutenant, head back to the gate. Dial Atlantis and inform Doctor Weir that we've made peaceful contact with the natives, and that unless she hears otherwise at the next check-in she should prepare to evacuate to this location."

"Yes, sir," Ford said before jogging off the way they had come.

Teyla approached them a few minutes later. "How many do you number?"

"About a hundred and seventy," Sumner said.

"Then in that case, I believe we can accommodate you, for a little while," Teyla said. "We will discuss any long-term arrangements once your people are safe."

"That's very generous of you," John said. He pointed in the direction of the ruins. "If you don't mind us asking, what are those structures?"

"What are – oh, I see. That is a city of our ancestors. There are some other ruins scattered around this world, but those are the largest. We do not go there."

"Why not?"

"It is said that doing so attracts the Wraith. It would not surprise me if it were true. They destroyed it in the first place, and often visit their wrath upon cities. It is one reason why we move our camps between years instead of remaining in one place."

"I'm sorry. What are the Wraith?" John asked, hoping that his suspicions weren't correct.

Teyla turned her head sharply and stared at him wide-eyed. "You do not know of the Wraith?"

"Never heard of them."

"If your world has never been visited by them, then you should return there," she fervently proclaimed. "A flood would be far preferable to living in their shadow."

"We can look after ourselves," Sumner said.

"If you think that, then you truly do have no idea what they are," Teyla said softly. "Major Sheppard, come with me. There is something I must show you."

John nodded and said to Sumner, "Be back in a bit, sir."

"Check-in is in twenty, Major," the colonel reminded him. "We'll start moving then."

"Understood, sir."

As they walked away, Teyla commented, "Your leader looks through me like I do not exist."

"He kinda does that to everyone," John admitted. "Our actual leader, Elizabeth Weir, is a lot better at this sort of thing but she's busy organizing the evacuation."

"I see. I look forward to meeting her, then."

Teyla took John down a path into the forest. They passed over a stream and then down into a valley, where John was tripped by an evil, alien tree root and promptly fell flat on his ass and skidded halfway down the hillside. Teyla, thankfully, was polite enough not to laugh. After a few minutes they came to a rough archway hewn into a rocky cliff wall. A few yards inside there were torches resting in holders on the wall. Teyla took one down and John reached into his vest for a lighter. To his surprise, Teyla withdrew a small device from a pouch on her belt and directed it at the torch. There was a bright spark and the torch burst into the flame.

"We mastered fire long ago," Teyla informed him with an amused smile.

"Guess so," John replied. It reinforced his growing belief that while the Athosians looked primitive they may not have always been so. He pulled out a flashlight and flipped it on. They reached a bend in the passage and down in a small crevice something glinted in the beam of his light. He knelt down and dug into the loose dirt, discovering a pendant of some kind.

"What's this?" he asked.

Teyla turned and gasped. "My father gave it to me as a child. I lost it years ago."

"Looks like it's your lucky day." John studied it for a moment and handed it over. Teyla slipped it around her neck and fastened it. The leather strip it hung from was short, obviously made for a smaller person, but it still looked good on her.

They kept walking until they were a good hundred or so feet underground and came to a wide, circular chamber. There were intricate designs full of curves and sharp angles on the wall, floor, and ceiling, inlaid there with fine strands of metal. John hesitated at the threshold, unsure that he should go further.

"Come," Teyla said, noticing he wasn't following. "The wards will not harm you. They merely hide anyone who passes further inside. I played here often as a child, as have many others."

"They hide you from the Wraith?"

"Yes. Regrettably we have lost the art of recreating such intricate and powerful designs such as these, but our ancestors made several sites like this for us to shelter inside before the last fall."

Teyla lead him into another hall branching off the circular chamber and stopped a short way inside. Here there were more drawings carved in the wall, but instead of complex geometries they were much simpler pictograms. They were also carved directly into the rock instead of being inset metal. The first one depicted several pointed, curved objects with motion lines trailing behind them, some kind of aircraft perhaps. They were sending down cones at crowds of stick figures underneath them. Other nearby carvings and paintings showed burning buildings and strange, twisted human forms.

"Do these show the destruction of your city?" John asked.

"I think it is unlikely, but I can not say for sure," Teyla said. "There have been many cities that have risen and fallen over the years and that one is among the oldest. The deep caves are filled with drawings such as these, some that date back for thousands of years if the calendars are to be believed. I see no reason to doubt them."

"So it's happened several times then."

"It has been happening as long as our history records, or the histories of any other world that we know," Teyla said softly, watching as John played his light across other images. "The Wraith slumber for a hundred or more years, allowing our numbers to grow. Then, when the time is right, they awaken to sweep across the galaxy and cull their human herds. Some do not sleep and come to our worlds from time to time, to sate their hunger and remind us of their power."

John nodded slowly. "They eat people?"

"Yes. At times their victims have been found, little more than shriveled husks," Teyla replied. "It is said they sometimes hunt for sport, and occasionally they walk among us in their arrogance." She indicated another drawing, showing a human-shaped creature. Its mouth was open to show a row of sharp teeth, and its right hand was raised like a snake about to strike. "The last great holocaust was over four generations ago, as best we can tell. We keep what records we can, make markings in the calendars here and elsewhere, but it is hard to say for sure. We move our camps and farms each year, so that they can not find us easily. Some of us can even sense them coming and give us warning."

"That's a hell of a way to live."

Teyla shrugged. "Perhaps. We try to teach our children not to live in fear, and to retain what arts and sciences we can. We at least have our dignity and our humanity. Other worlds... well. It is best not to speak of what madness some worlds have sunk into in their struggles to resist or hide. We do not go to those places, nor do those we trade with."

They spent a few more minutes examining the different drawings and paintings, but as time passed John grew increasingly uneasy. There was a pang in his gut, a deep sense of foreboding that went beyond that caused by his knew knowledge of the Wraith. It was a feeling he had gotten often in his career, usually right before something started to go wrong or a scramble order arrived.

"You seem anxious, Major," Teyla said suddenly.

"Sorry. I've just got this weird feeling," he replied.

Teyla studied him and then seemed to look off into the distance. "Perhaps we should return to the settlement. If your people truly cannot go home, we should prepare for their arrival."

"Good idea."

They hurried back the way they had come, out of the cave and up the treacherous hillside and its evil tree. They were halfway there when Teyla suddenly stopped in her tracks.

"Wraith," she hissed. She whirled on John. "Did you bring them here?"

"No!" John protested, consciously fighting the urge to raise his weapon. "I swear!"

She stared at him for a moment, eyes piercing, then nodded sharply and started to run. "We must get everyone into the caves or some other shelter!"

John sprinted after her, relaying a warning over his radio. It was too late; already Sumner was shouting commands of his own, ordering them all to go weapons-free and engage hostile aircraft. Overhead the sky was going dark and the land seemed to be cast in shadow, like there was an eclipse, and yet there were no clouds to be seen. Screams and an unnatural buzzing screech that sounded like a cicada mated with a table saw could be heard in the distance. Suddenly his tags started to burn against his chest and the back of his eyes seemed to itch, and for an instant he thought he saw something in his peripheral vision.

"Do not trust your eyes," Teyla shouted at him. "They can make you see things!"

"Got it!"

They were almost to the village when the screech grew louder and John's instincts told him to throw himself to the right. He tried to grab Teyla but she dodged left instead, an instant too late, and she disappeared into a column of quicksilver light. John rolled and fired off a burst at the passing ship, to no obvious effect, then picked himself up and started running again. Ahead he heard the familiar sound of a shoulder-launched missile firing and moments later a different ship exploded overhead.

Just as suddenly as the attack had begun, the ships disappeared out of sight, although he could still hear their sound fading off in the direction of the stargate. All around John, tents and buildings were burning and people still scrambling around in a panic.

"All personnel, sound off," John said into his radio. Ford and the others at the gate reported in immediately. There was no sign of Sumner, Bates, or the other Marines who had been there, other than a few scattered casings here and there. "Ford, report to my position immediately."

"Roger that, sir," Ford said, sounding remarkably unshaken. For his part, John was pretty sure that the instant he had a chance to relax and think for a moment he was going to shit his pants.

"Major Sheppard?" John turned to find Jinto behind him. "Where is Teyla?"

"Taken," John said. "Where's your dad?"

"I don't know," and fuck, the kid looked like he was about the cry. John loved kids, loved teenagers more as long as he could hand them off to someone else when they got bitchy, but crying ones were right out.

"Okay, here's what I need you to do," John said, putting his hands on Jinto's shoulders. "Find whoever's in charge, or just round up as many people as you can and bring them back here. We're getting out of here before the Wraith come back, because I'm pretty sure they're going to pissed about that." John pointed at the burning wreckage that had once been a Wraith fighter. "Can you do that for me?"

"Yes. Yes, I can." Jinto nodded and darted off.

Ford appeared at John's side. "Sir? Where's the colonel?"

"Those ships beamed him up along with the rest of the team. Did you get the address they went to?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good job. We're retreating back to Atlantis. I want the shield and the ocean between us and the Wraith asap."

Ford frowned. "Sir, Doctor Weir was preparing to evacuate the city."

"Yeah, well, we'll have to figure something else out. We're taking the Athosians with us, too. I'm not leaving them behind to face any reprisals because we fought back."

"But – yes, sir."

"Come on, let's try to get some survivors rounded up." John started toward one of the collapsed buildings then stopped suddenly as his eye caught movement where there shouldn't have been any. He looked closer and it took a moment for his mind to process that he really was seeing a grotesque, burnt arm crawling out of the wrecked.

"Shit!" he exclaimed, all but jumping out of his boots. John glanced at Ford, who looked back with wide eyes, and together they raised their rifles and fired. Once it was well and truly pasted, John carefully approached and scooped some of the tissue into one of the little sample containers they carried for this sort of insane bullshit.

It took less time to get the Athosians gathered together than it might have, because the attack had been so sudden and swift that few people had been able to flee far before the Wraith had left. Many of them had been taken as well. It also wasn't that hard to convince them to come with the remains of John's team. They had obviously picked up and hauled ass in the aftermath of such an attack before, and once they saw the smashed wreck of the dart-like fighter no one doubted the wisdom of at least temporarily vacating the planet.

The reception on the other side of the gate was about what he expected.

"Sheppard, what the fuck are you doing?" Cam shouted from the top of the stairs as the Athosians streamed in behind him.

"We were attacked," John said upon reaching him. "Colonel Sumner is missing and presumed captured. You're in command."

Weir came striding over. "Major Sheppard, we're supposed to be evacuating, we can't afford to take on refugees ourselves."

"I couldn't just leave them there."

Her expression twisted for a moment. "I understand, but we need to get out of here. The shield won't last much longer."

John scanned the crowd below and shouted, "Jinto, come up here!" The boy bounced up the stairs and John asked, "Do you know the addresses of any safe planet?"

"Yes, many."

"John, he's just a kid," Cam pointed out.

"I am Jinto."

"That's Cam, that's Elizabeth, they're pleased to meet you," John said said, ushering Jinto toward the DHD. They didn't even get that far before something went thunk and sent a deep, strong vibration through the floor.

"Okay," McKay said from the rear console he was hunched over, "does anyone know what this new alarm means?"

The city shivered, but it wasn't the prelude to a bone-crushing wall of water. Instead the floor suddenly lurched upward, sending people sprawling. It smoothed out after a moment but John didn't need to be a pilot to feel they were still moving upward like a rapidly climbing plane. There was a rumble and rush of water outside the windows and suddenly they were bursting out into open air, still rising up further and further past the waves and into the sunlight, finally, _finally_ free of the depths after so very, very long in the dark.

They stopped moving after a minute and everyone seemed to be holding their breath to see what would happened next. The silence was eventually broken by McKay saying, "So it looks like Grodin was wrong about the horrible, watery doom thing."

It took about twenty minutes for everything to get sorted out. The evacuation was off, of course, which meant they had to go back to finding somewhere to stash all their gear. There were the Athosians to consider, too. They seemed torn between worry for their lost friends, family, and home and awe at finding themselves in the city. John gave a terse report of what had happened to Weir and Cam as soon as he could. The most immediate concern was the safety of the city, of course.

"Well, it could be worse," McKay said as the four of them gathered around one of the control stations. "The ZPM is essentially drained at this point, but I think our own generators should be fine for day to day operations, especially once we get more wired in properly and we aren't using these makeshift connections."

"Does that mean we can run the shield now?" Weir asked.

"No, I'd be surprised if we could get it up at all, let alone provide enough power to resist an attack."

"McKay, without a shield we're sitting ducks," Cam pointed out. "A ship could jump in and nuke us from orbit at any time."

"I'm painfully aware of that, Colonel, thank you."

"How long before you figure out where the Wraith took our people?" John asked.

"Well, Lieutenant Ford saw all six symbols, but not the exact order," McKay said. "It'll take a while to work out the address, because with there are hundreds of possible permutations.

"Seven hundred and twenty."

McKay stopped short for a moment and looked at him in surprised. "Yes, I know that. Why do you?"

"Well, you've got a database full of gate addresses right over there," John said, gesturing at the DHD. "It shouldn't take too long to find the right one, and if it's not in there it still shouldn't be hard to try each combination. Then we can send a MALP through."

"Yes. Quite. I'll get right on that."

Weir coughed softly and said, "Colonel. Major. A word."

John and Cam exchanged a glance and followed her as she walked to the conference room they had found on the other side of the mezzanine level. They were just passing the stairs when a door opened next to the stained-glass window there. Cautiously they stepped through, and the sight on the other side took John's breath away. The city stretched for miles and its towers, no longer hidden in murky water, could be clearly seen where they reached up into the sky. They shimmered in the light as water continues to flow off them.

"Wow," Weir said softly.

"Now that is impressive," Cam murmured.

The moment passed swiftly, and John turned to face Weir. "You don't want to let us rescue our people, do you?"

Weir sighed. "It's not that simple, Major."

"Not simple," John repeated incredulously. "They took our people, it doesn't get any simpler than that. We do not leave anyone in enemy hands."

"We don't even know if they're still alive –"

"And we never will if we don't go look for them!"

"– and we are in no position to go chasing after them," Weir finished, raising her voice over his. "We are completely defenseless at the moment. If you run off on some half-assed rescue mission, you could bring them down on our heads."

"Maybe, but it's still the right thing to do!" John insisted. "They're going to come sooner or later anyways."

"You don't know that."

"If they want to, they can find out where we are from Sumner and the others," Cam quietly pointed out. "Torture, compulsion wards, mind probes – they'll do it somehow."

"Which makes preparing our defenses and not attracting attention early all the more important," Weir retorted. "We don't even know what the actual facts of this situation are, who the aggressor is here."

"Facts? Aggressor?" John raised and spread his hands. "The Wraith attacked less than an hour after we got there. I don't think it could get any clearer."

"The SGC has thought that way before, and because of it we've ended up entangled in wars and on the wrong side more than once. I'm not saying you're wrong, but we have to be careful." Weir waved at the gate, which was just visible through the glass. "We don't even know anything about the people you brought back with you. It's entirely possible on of them tipped the Wraith off about us."

"You weren't there, didn't see what it was like. They're good people in a bad position, just like we are, and we'll need all the friends we can get if we're going to survive."

"I understand that, and I agree, it's more than likely that they could make good allies," Weir allowed. She locked her eyes to his and didn't so much as blink as she went on. "Now I need you to understand me. I will not authorize any rescue mission unless there is some small chance of success. I refuse to send anyone on a pointless suicide mission."

"Cam," John said, turning to his last source of hope.

Cam shook his head and John's heart sank. "She's right, John. There could be an iris, fixed defenses, or a dangerous atmosphere. We need to do recon first, see if we have a chance."

After a few drawn-out seconds, Weir said, "I'll see you when we send the MALP through, gentlemen."

She walked back through the door into the city. John slammed his first against the balcony railing in frustration and then leaned against it, staring out across the city.

"You know she's right," Cam said quietly. He took a place next to John, so close they were almost touching. "We can't rush into this."

"I suppose not," John said with a deep sigh. A year before he might have had a different answer, but Antarctica had given him a lot of extra time to think.

"Can I trust you not to go running off without permission?"

John looked at him like he was crazy and there was an odd, pained twinge in his chest. "What kind of stupid question is that? Of course you can trust me."

A smile slowly spread across Cam's face. "Yeah, I suppose I am a bit of a dumb ass." He put a warm, comforting hand on John's shoulder. "Come on, let's go harass McKay until he coughs up an address."

McKay did produce results a few minutes later, but John's already bad day turned to pure shit when they sent the MALP through and it ended up in space. It wasn't until McKay got a weird gleam in his eye and dragged him upstairs that John started to feel his confidence return.

"Think this will help?" McKay asked.

It took a minute for John to answer, because he was too busy staring at the second most beautiful thing he had seen in his life. It was short and tubular, with no visible protrusions of any kind, and was covered with strange groves. Quite frankly it should have been one of the uglier ships he had ever laid eyes on, but none the less it was amazing.

"Yeah," he said. "I think it will."

While McKay went to get Weir, John stepped into the little ship. It started lighting up as he slowly made it way to the cockpit, and when he sat down in front of the controls the entire ship hummed to life with barely-constrained energy. It felt like a horse underneath him, eager and ready to leap out into the air. Under any other circumstances he could have spent days getting to know it. He didn't have days, though, and started to familiarize himself with the controls as fast as he dared.

Cam, McKay, and Weir walked into the room a few minutes later, stopping short at the door.

"Where is he?" McKay asked. "He was right here!"

John toggled off the cloaking device and smiled as they all jumped. "Is this enough to give us a small chance, Doctor Weir?"

Weir lost her control and a smile appeared on her face, just for a moment. "Maybe. Can you fly it?"

"Fly it?" Cam said with a grin. "Ma'am, give him five minutes and he'll make that thing dance."

Ten minutes later a Marine fire team was trooping aboard, each one of them loaded for bear. Lorne was along as a backup pilot, because while he wasn't a pilot professionally he did at least have a civilian license.

"Try not to crash and get us all killed, Sheppard," Lorne said dryly as he dropped into the copilot's seat.

John smiled. "Fuck off and die, Lorne. I've never crashed anything in my life."

"I'm sorry, I just can't help but remember what happened the last time I saw you flying something. I'm pretty sure there was crash involved."

"Hey, everyone walked away from that!"

"What about Captain Velázquez?"

"His leg was already broken when he got aboard. And can I remind you that my chopper was full of holes and the engine gave out thirty feet up?"

Lorne shook his head. "You were the pilot, those were your fault. A crash is a crash."

Ford came out of the back compartment then and sat down behind John. "We're ready to go, sir. What's crashing?"

"Hopefully not this... thing," Lorne said, waving at the controls.

"Gateship, sir," Ford supplied helpfully.

John and Lorne both turned to stare at him. "What?" John said.

Somehow Ford managed to smile even more than he usually did. "A gateship. You know, it's a ship that goes through the gate."

"You're not allowed to name anything ever again," John declared.

Ford looked like he had been kicked. "Doctor McKay thought it was cool."

"Lieutenant, a word of advice," Lorne said. "Never listen to what McKay thinks is cool, especially if you ever want to get laid again."

John powered the ship up and brought it to hover over in the center of the room. "Flight, this is... Puddle Jumper One. We're ready to proceed."

"Jumper One, Flight," Cam replied, laughter in his voice. In the background McKay was loudly protesting something. "You are clear to go. Godspeed and good hunting."

"Thanks, Flight. See you soon. Lorne, dial it up."

Lorne punched into the coordinates in the mini-DHD at the center of the control panel. A few seconds later a door began to iris open in the floor below them. John felt the autopilot kick in, orienting the ship the right direction and lowering it down to the gate. It waited there a moment until John gave it the final push and they swept through the wormhole. Moments later they were free and clear in open space, with the cloak engaged.

"Flight, Jumper One," he said. "We're through, no sign of the enemy. Going to radio silence."

"So what now?" Lorne asked, since this was the point where their sorry excuse for a plan started to turn up giant question marks.

"Now we find some way," John started, pausing when a HUD appeared and highlighted a point on the planet below, "to scan for their location. Sweet."

"Awesome," Lorne said, leaning forward to study the display. "Nothing much down there, just one, ah, hive ship, currently powered down in hibernation mode."

"You can read Ancient?" John asked curiously.

"Uh... yeah," Lorne said with a puzzled frown. He shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "Enough to get by, anyways."

"Great. Okay, so we know where their base is, so we just need a way to –"

Once again John stopped, because a little hatch slid open next to his seat and revealed a little tricorder-thing. He took it out and it happily chirped to life, showing an outline of the ship and several dots that matched the position of John and his team.

"You know, I'm starting to like this mind-control thing," John commented. He added hopefully, "I could really use a turkey sandwich. Well? Anyone?"

"Nothing back here, sir," Ford said.

"Nope," Lorne said.

"Damn. Okay, I'm taking us down."

There was no sign of any activity from the Wraith as the jumper entered the atmosphere and approached the hive. It was hard to see it as they drew near, and for a few minutes he though there was something wrong with their ten thousand-year-old equipment. Then they passed a huge, gaping cave with dim lights inside and John suddenly realized that the small, tree-covered mountain he was circling was actually the ship. It was huge, maybe six or seven miles long, and for a single dizzying moment he wondered what the fuck he was thinking in trying to attack it. Fortunately thinking rarely had anything to do with his ideas and he found a small clearing a few minutes' walk from the cave opening.

"Lorne, deploy defenses as you see fit," John said, getting out of his chair and pushing his way through the Marine to reach the ramp. "Keep an eye on those sensors, too. If anything looks hinky or you don't hear from us in an hour, return to base."

"Yes, sir," Lorne said. John had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn't do any such thing, but John had to at least give the order.

"Ford, you got the nuke?" John's appreciation for Weir's packing skills had never been higher than when she had authorized him to bring the small naquadah 'demolition charge' along.

"Sir, yes, sir!" Ford said, practically bouncing like a puppy with a new toy. John kinda got the impression that Ford enjoyed explosives way more than was healthy.

"All right, let's move out."

John took point, leading Ford and four other marines into the gaping wound in the mountain's side. The tricorder in his hand showed no life signs nearby, but they still entered with caution in case there were any automated defenses. Nothing challenged them or tried to impede them, though, and soon they were quietly padding their way toward a distant cluster of green dots. It was hard going, not so much because of the twisting passages or the dim light and constant swirl of fog around their knees, but because of how incredibly disturbing the environment was. The ship seemed to be alive, the corridors lined with odd bits of stretched flesh and hard, glistening chitin that wouldn't look out of place on the creepiest beetle you had ever seen. Occasionally they passed slowly pulsing tubules or protrusions that seeped strange liquids. For the first time, John started to truly understand what people had meant whenever they started to go on about squamous and rugose creatures on alien worlds. He really wished he wasn't inside of one.

They found a cell about ten minutes after entering the ship, as it wasn't too far from the open hangar bay. Teyla and Bates were inside, along with several Athosians and Marines. There was no sign of Sumner.

"Evening, ladies and gentlemen," John whispered through the web-like lattice separating the cell from the hall. "I'm Luke Skywalker. I'm here to rescue you."

"John?" Teyla stepped forward with a shocked, worried expression. "How did you get here?"

"We've got a ship. Here's the plan. We're going to blow you guys out of here, run like hell, then vaporize the bastards." John craned his neck to look deeper into the cell. "Where's Sumner?"

"They took him, sir," Bates said. "About six minutes ago."

"Fuck." John grimaced and cursed their poor timing, wondering if he could have been just a little faster somehow. "Okay. Stacks, get these guys some charges and weapons. Ford, let's find somewhere to stick your toy."

John and Ford found a small, secluded cranny a few dozen feet down the hall. They pulled the nuke from Ford's backpack, got it securely wedged in a position that partially hid it under an overhang, then armed it. It had three detonation triggers: a timer, a remote that was currently in Lorne's hands, and a tamper-proof system. John set the timer for thirty-five minutes and the two of them synchronized their watches with it.

"Lieutenant," John said softly. "I'm going after the colonel. Wait fifteen minutes, then blow the cells and head back to the jumper. Inform Major Lorne that he is to lift at the two minute mark and not a second later."

"Sir, I should be the one to go," Ford protested quietly. "You're more valuable to the mission."

"I'm going, Lieutenant. That's final."

"Then I should go with you, sir. You'll need backup."

John hesitated. The kid was right, as little as John wanted to admit it. He had a lot more experience dealing with this sort of thing, because even though he had been sitting around bases most of the time he would have still been immersed in the SGC's culture and learned how things were supposed to go off-world. Rule number one was never let anyone go off alone if you could possibly avoid it. All of John's instincts screamed not to risk the kid when it wasn't necessary, but then the rational part of him said that the kid wasn't a kid and had known damn well what he was getting into.

"Give your disarm key to Stackhouse," John ordered. "Then we'll go together."

John gave Stackhouse the same orders he had Ford. The sergeant didn't give him any backtalk, although he did give him the evil eye that all sergeants perfected for dealing with idiot officers. John was quite familiar with it and completely unphased. He and Ford started down the hall toward another set of lifesigns, with John on point and Ford covering his rear. This time the cluster they sought was a pair of red dots next to a single green.

They were almost there when an inhuman scream ripped down the halls. John had heard a lot of pained noises in his life as a rescue pilot, he knew what sound a man made with his guts spilling out, but he had never once heard anything like this one and hoped never to hear it again. Without a word he and Ford sprinted down the last hundred yards of corridor. They found a large chamber there, a grotesque mockery of a dining room, complete with a table covered with food. A dessicated corpse sat in a chair at one end.

There were two Wraith there, one male, one female. Both were tall and lithe, with skins that were a sickly blue-green color that seemed to shift and shimmer slightly as they moved. The female, the queen, had long blood-red hair; the male's was pure white. At first glance they might have passed for humans, but on closer observation it was clear they were anything but that. It was their limbs that gave them away, subtly too long in a way that screamed _badwrongevil_ in the primitive part of John's brain. Their movement was all wrong as well, too still one moment and too quick and fluid the next, more like a spider or snake than any mammal.

The queen had her hand on the chest of someone kneeling before her. The only reason John realized it was Sumner were the BDUs he wore. Otherwise there was no resemblance at all. Sumner had been thick, strong man, the very definition of a Marine even when he was firmly on the wrong side of forty. The shriveled creature before John was the diametric of opposite of that, little more than a pale skeleton with flabby skin hanging off of its bones, with little muscle remaining. Even that skin was now drying and shrinking like thin plastic exposed to a flame. Only the eyes seemed the same, unnaturally bright in their sunken pits.

Before he knew what he was doing John raised his rifle and put a dozen rounds in the queen's back, knocking her away from the colonel. Incredibly that wasn't enough to put her down. She turned to face John, her mouth wide as she let out an angry hiss, and exit wounds in her chest equally wide but closing rapidly. She raised her hand up near her shoulder, giving John a perfect, terrible look at it. It had a gaping slit in the palm, from which a tangle of writhing tentacles emerged like a nest of spaghetti-thin vipers. John didn't waste any time before emptying the rest of his clip into her, finally making her stumble and fall.

The male Wraith was reacting almost the instant John fired the first time, spinning about and crouching down. He glared at them for a split second and then leaped, fast as a pouncing tiger. That wasn't fast enough, though; Ford already had his heavy basilisk weapon aimed and ready. There were no special effect, no laser beams shot from the cluster of lenses at the gun's business end; one moment the Wraith was starting to leap and the next it was tumbling down and wreathed in pale blue flames. Its arms broke off when it hit and the carbonized trunk slid forward a last few feet.

"Jesus," Ford whispered in the sudden silence.

Slowly he and John approached Sumner's body. John was sure he was dead; there wasn't any way a person could possibly survive the kind of massive trauma that Sumner had experienced. It wasn't until John knelt down to retrieve his tags that Sumner's staring eyes suddenly locked to his and the colonel let out a pitiful mewling noise. Ford stumbled away then and was noisily sick in a corner. John froze where he was, his hand halfway to the chain around Sumner's neck, unable to move at all. It seemed impossible that there could still be life in that wrecked body, and certainly not intelligence given how much damage a brain would have experienced if it underwent the same destructive process as the rest of the body, but by some accident or dark malice there was undeniably someone still conscious behind those eyes.

John knew in an instant what he had to do. Moving the colonel would almost certainly kill him, and they had no sarcophagus back in Atlantis to revive him and restore his body to what it should have been. Even if Sumner somehow survived and they could keep him alive, it would be no salvation but damnation instead.

"Ford, watch the entrance," John ordered without looking away from Sumner. With his left hand, John carefully grasped one of Sumner's; with his right, he drew his sidearm, took aim, and pulled the trigger.

Ford was staring at John when he stood, his skin tinged a sickly green. John couldn't quite look at him as he clicked his radio three times. Moments later the noise of a distant explosion rumbled through hallway and an eerie siren began to wail.

As John walked past the queen, she faintly hissed at him. He jerked back in surprise, unable to believe she was still alive.

"Lantean," she slurred, her voice barely understandable. "You were foolish to return."

"Oh, yeah?" John stepped a little closer and stared down at her. "How's that?"

"You escaped us once. You shall not do so again." The queen coughed wetly. "When I die, the others will awaken. All of them. My sisters will devour your people and strip your city of all its secrets and power. Our god will rise once more and then, Lantean, then we shall find your Earth."

"Is that so?" John said. He gave her a toothy, feral grin. "Personally, I don't think that's likely. But whatever happens, you're not going to be there to see it." He fired a couple more shots into her, probably not enough to kill her but certainly enough to keep her down. He turned and strode past Ford. "Come on, let's move."

They reached the jumper just behind the other half of the rescue team and their charges. It was a tight fit inside but they all managed to squeeze in like sardines in a can. Two fighters buzzed past overhead just as the ramp hissed shut behind the last Marine. John threw himself into the pilot's seat and had them airborne a second later.

"Time," he asked, focused on getting them out of the atmosphere as fast as he could without moving so fast that the cloak would be useless. He instinctively knew that beyond a certain speed the disturbed air would give them away.

"Twelve minutes left, sir," Ford reported. He had retaken his seat behind John, while Teyla stood between John and Lorne, peering out the window.

"That's too long," John said. "Lorne, you can hit the button at your discretion."

Lorne grinned. "With pleasure."

They were too far out to feel any blast effects to feel anything and facing the wrong way to see it, but there was a satisfying blip on the HUD and the hiveship's icon disappeared. John slowed them down and briefly flipped the jumper end for end, and even from orbit they could see the red splotch on the planet's face.

"You destroyed them," Teyla said, voice filled with awe and wonder. "You walked right into their hive and destroyed them. No one has ever done that."

"There's a first time for everything," John said. He noticed that those two darts were still around, having escaped the blast because they had been heading for open space too. No, that wasn't quite right – they were heading for the gate, either to guard it or to pass through. Either way, it wouldn't do at all, so John slipped in behind them and let the cloak blink out just long enough for him to fire of pair drones straight up their asses.

"Nice shooting, Sheppard," Lorne commented as he dialed the gate.

"You'll notice I haven't crashed the ship."

"We're not on the ground yet."

Five minutes later they were safely back in the hangar in Atlantis. Weir and Cam were waiting for them, along with a medical team and a squad of Marines. She had a pensive look on her face and Cam had his arms crossed and John could tell from the slight tick in his arm and the way he kept shifting his weight that he was fighting to stay still. He relaxed a little when he spotted John.

John waited for the people who had been taken to be escorted off for medical treatment and mandatory post-capture exams before he exited the jumper him, with Teyla still at his side for the moment.

"Doctor Weir, this is Teyla Emmagan, leader of the Athosians," John said. "Teyla, Elizabeth Weir, our own leader."

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Doctor Weir," Teyla said with a bow of her head. "I can not adequately express my gratitude. What have you done, risking your lives to save us, destroying the Wraith – it would have been unimaginable when I woke this morning."

"We could hardly have done otherwise," Weir said with a glance at John. "Most of your people are here in Atlantis with us."

"Atlantis?" Teyla looked around the room. "The City of the Ancestors?"

"No, this is a different planet," John said. "We're not on Athos."

"Yes, I know, I meant –" Teyla paused, then shook her head. "There will be time to discuss history and theology later. I would like to see my people and inform them of this wondrous event."

"Of course," Weir said. She extended her hand toward the door. "If you'll follow me, I'll take you to them. We do need to make a quick stop with our doctors, to insure that you are healthy and check for other concerns."

"I understand. It is wise to take precautions." Teyla turned back to John, placed her hands on his shoulders, and touched her forehead to his. "Thank you again, John."

"It was nothing, really."

Teyla smiled. "So you say. I shall see you later."

Weir and Teyla left, with a few marines as escorts. John watched them go before he took a deep breath and held out Sumner's tags to Cam.

"Colonel Sumner is dead, sir."

"Right," Cam said, glumly accepting them. He must have seen something in John's face, or maybe in Ford's, because he frowned and pursed his lips. "We'll debrief in an hour. Go get yourselves cleared."

"Yes, sir."

Cam eyed him and said, "If you keep calling me 'sir', Sheppard, I'm going to think you're an alien."

"I am part alien, sir, remember? You explained that yourself. Sir."

"Stop being a smart-ass and get moving. Go on, shoo."

John and the rest of the rescue team were quickly scanned for implanted devices, diseases, parasites, brain-hijacking entities, or any of the other nasty things SG teams had carried home with at one time or another. Once they were turned loose, John sent the marines off to find something constructive to do before wandering off himself to find somewhere to clear his head. He knew that any minute now he would be coming down off the adrenaline high he had been riding since he had first stepped through the gate barely two hours before, and he wanted to make sure he could pull himself together by the time he had to explain what had happened to Cam and Weir.

He found an isolated balcony about a dozen levels below the gate complex and at the end of a twisty little side corridor. He closed the door behind him and sat down with his back against the wall. The metal was already dry and pleasantly warm, and despite the height there was only a mild breeze instead of the strong gusts he normal would have expected. For a while he just stared out across the city, not even sure if he wanted to think or wanted to just space out.

The door slid open just long enough to admit Lorne, who took one look at John and slid down the wall to settle at his side and lean against him a little. Even through four layers of cloth, John could feel the heat of Lorne's body and a sensation almost like static along his skin; when their hands brush there was an electric tingle. There had always been an odd physical and emotional connection between them, something that went deeper than anything John had ever felt with someone else, except maybe Cam.

"How'd you find me?" John asked quietly.

"Good question," Lorne replied. "You want to talk about what happened?"

"Not until I have to," John said.

Lorne, sensing that John needed to be distracted and let out all the pent-up tension that had built over the day, started to nuzzle at John's neck. It wasn't long before they were spread out on the balcony floor and desperately rutting against each other, and not long after that before Lorne was doing his damnedest to suck John's brain out his dick. John returned the favor and, in his opinion, did a pretty fine job himself. They stayed sprawled all over each other until shortly before the debriefing, at which point they picked themselves up and made themselves presentable.

The debriefing went as well as could be expected. John insisted that he and Ford give their accounts separately, in order to make sure both of their asses were covered against any possible accusations that they were conspiring or John was coercing Ford somehow. John could tell it had been a completely unnecessary bit of paranoia as soon as he walked into the room and saw the sympathy on the faces of Weir and Cam. Between Ford's story and what they had heard while talking with Teyla over the last hour, they had no doubt that he had been justified in his actions. John was left with his head spinning from the ease with which the discussion went compared to his last encounter with an inquiry. It was a nice change to hear that he had done the right thing; he just wished that he didn't have nagging doubts that he could have gotten there sooner, or that he could forget what he had done. Justified or not, he wasn't going to be sleeping well anytime soon.

When all was said and done, there was still plenty of work to be done. By the time night fell, they had managed to get everyone in the expedition and all the Athosians into some temporary quarters, and more importantly figured out where the restrooms were. Come morning there was going to be even more work as they started to explore the city and figure out what their plan for dealing with the Wraith would be. For that one evening, though, they sat back, relaxed, and had a little party. It had been right there in Weir's plans: eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we work our asses off.

"Have you noticed that Mitchell keeps staring at you?" Lorne asked as he and John carried their laden trays toward the table where the expedition and Athosian leaders were sitting.

"No," John lied. It was really more of a matter of sidelong glances than outright staring. Never mind how Cam was watching John as he approached, or at least was until he saw John looking back and immediately averted his eyes.

"Well, he does."

"He's been watching you for the last couple weeks too," John pointed out.

"Yeah, but that's been more of a murderous and jealous look. You should talk to him, see what he wants." Lorne smirked. "Not that there's much doubt about it. I mean, I suppose he might just want to hug you and make you feel better, but I'm pretty sure he wants to comfort you in other ways too."

John gave Lorne a dubious look. "What, am I boring you? Because it seems like you're trying to get rid of me."

"Never. I'm just saying, we're gonna be here a long time. Think of it as a chance to work things out."

"Thanks for the advice, Doctor Phil."

It was a nice thought, but unlike Lorne, John knew that there was nothing to work out. Even if there had been anything there, which John supposed might have been the case given Cam's weird admission that first night in Antarctica, Cam was too much of a professional to act on any feelings he had now that he was in command. John didn't mind, because as he sat down next to Cam and the bastard tried to steal his cupcake, he knew that everything was fine just the way things were. John had his friends, he had a purpose again, and he finally had what felt like a real home. He didn't need anything more.

Well, okay, a turkey sandwich might be nice, but you couldn't have everything.


End file.
